Democracy Thrives in the Civic Space

Why Strengthening Democratic Participation Must Be A Priority Every Year

American democracy is not much older than me. I was born in 1972 in Detroit, less than a decade after the passages of the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, which expanded freedoms to millions of citizens almost two centuries after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. So, in the truest sense, our country has only been a functioning democracy for roughly 60 years.

Our democracy is not inevitable nor guaranteed. It requires our care, defending, and constant pursuit of a “more perfect union.” We, the people, are the ones that power and preserve the institution, and we can’t take this responsibility lightly.

We have heard and will continue to hear a lot about democracy leading up to November 5, and while voting rights and respect for free and fair elections are fundamental, democracy is more than showing up to vote every four years. It’s more than polls and punditry. It’s even more than policy wins.

The heart of democracy is the people, its pulse is the civic spaces that connect us, and its health requires us to reinvigorate our nation to see and value each other’s worth and dignity, including through our differences, so everyone belongs and can fully participate in keeping our proverbial “house” undivided and collective heart beating.

As president of the Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation, I have seen democracy in the people and the movements that power change, which is why our foundation invests in organizations working to strengthen democratic participation.

These include organizations like ISAIAH and Unidos MN who helped build a people-powered movement across interests over a decade that resulted in Minnesota’s 2023 legislative session being one of the most consequential in recent history. With more than 74 bills passed, ranging from expanding voting rights to ensuring more people have a stable place to live to increasing jobs and community wealth through clean energy investments, there was a throughline of policy solutions that make Minnesota a better place for all residents.

These outcomes only happened because of the hard work and dedication of people working year after year, despite shifts in electoral politics, to build and strengthen movements that turned visions into reality. And they only increase faith in democracy by delivering tangible benefits that people can see, feel, and count on.

I first experienced my own civic awakening through my grandmother, a neighborhood activist, or some would say a busybody. When I was young, I remember looking at a trash-filled lot across the street and exclaiming that someone should clean it up. She quickly responded, “well, you are somebody,” which has been my mantra guiding me to do what I can in my life to improve the lives of others.

Today, we are those somebodies called to stand up and defend our democracy—we can’t wait for anyone to do it for us—and that requires strengthening our civil society.

“Our nation’s civic spaces are as vast and diverse as the country itself and keeping them strong is vital to maintaining our democracy.”– TONYA ALLEN

If “democracy dies in darkness,” then it thrives in the civic space. It’s where we gather to break bread and find meaning with family and neighbors. It’s where we express ourselves and find support in formal and informal networks that help us navigate the good and hard times. It’s where we are called to a higher responsibility for our union, whether as corporate, faith, or community leaders. It’s in the ways we debate, protest, and organize, bringing injustices to light and holding power to account, so more people can experience the fullness of this country’s promise. Our nation’s civic spaces are as vast and diverse as the country itself and keeping them strong is vital to maintaining our democracy.

Yet, there are ongoing concerted attempts to dismantle our nation’s civic spaces and society that are reminiscent of tactics used around the world to pave the way for authoritarian regimes. In a must-read paper, Rachel Kleinfeld with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace highlights worrying trends by actors who “are systematically using the forms of power they have at their disposal—governmental, legal, rhetorical, or violent force—to crush the space for public discussion of activities and ideas that do not fit their ideology.”

We must vehemently push back on attempts to restrict civic expression or undermine our civil society. There are many ways to do this, including by strengthening journalism as a critical “fourth estate” of our democracy, and supporting artists and culture bearers who help us envision a more just, abundant, and creative future. For this reason, McKnight is proud to support efforts to strengthen local journalism, including through Press Forward.

We are also proud to be in community and recognize powerful artists like Ricardo Levins Morales, who has built a career using art to inspire solidarity, healing, and resilience. It also means strengthening spaces where we find connections, shared values, and bridge across divides. Our partners like Project Optimist and Art of the Rural are demonstrating how what some would suggest is impossible is actually quite possible when we create space to come together, share across differences, and listen “to better understand who we are, what we love, what we fear, and what we need from one another.”

This leads me to my last point that the health of our democracy requires us to engage across differences and to recognize each other’s worth and dignity, even through disagreement. Despite narratives of entrenched division and polarization, we must reaffirm American society as an enabling environment that ensures everyone belongs, where we recognize our neighbors’ differences as assets that make us collectively stronger, and where we value our interdependence and our individual liberty.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called it the “inescapable network of mutuality,” Fannie Lou Hamer declared, “when I liberate myself, I liberate others,” and the late U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, a beloved Minnesota leader, said, “we all do better when we all do better.” America prospers when everyone has a chance to prosper, because inclusion enlarges opportunity and growth, so there is more for everyone, particularly those who have been historically furthest from accessing our country’s promise.

In my new home state of Minnesota, we have increasingly welcomed people from many different communities, including Somali, Hmong, Guatemalan, and Trans. They have come for a variety of reasons—often in pursuit of freedoms and opportunities denied elsewhere. It’s a place where a young Somali girl who immigrated here can go on to be elected to Congress, and where the daughter of refugees can represent her country and secure a gold medal as the first Hmong American Olympian. This is the promise of American democracy fulfilled.

Regardless of the outcome in November, our work to deliver on this promise must continue. The fragile nature of our democracy has been articulated before with Ben Franklin describing it as a “a Republic, if you can keep it,” and Thomas Jefferson warning that “the price of freedom is vigilance.” And yet, poet Amanda Gorman gives us hope that “while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated.”

Those words, both in the caution and hope they represent, call us to act. We are those somebodies to pick up the mantle of “this Great Experiment” and ensure we can maintain and extend its promise for future generations.