American Democracy: A Promise Still in the Making
America was not born a democracy. America was birthed as a promise to be made true through the expansion of access, safety, and belonging. And for 250 years, organizers, storytellers, and community builders have moved us closer to these ideals.
Let Freedom Ring: Tracing Connected Movements
Since the inception of the United States, our communities have fought for agency, power to make decisions for ourselves and our families, and an abundant future for generations to come. Their organizing has taken countless, beautiful formations over hundreds of years, and resulted in critical wins that have reshaped our ways of being and expanded the who and how of our participation in daily civic life.
In the 18th century, enslaved Black folks sought freedom through coordinated, multi-generational resistance, from work slowdowns and rebellions to organized escape networks like the Underground Railroad. Following emancipation, newly freed Black communities came together to build the infrastructure of civic life. Gathering in spaces like churches and mutual aid societies, communities established schools, organized land cooperatives, pooled resources to purchase property, and created independent political organizations to build multiracial democratic power.
During this same period, Chinese communities challenged exclusion and expanded our country’s meaning of belonging. Through legal challenges and community organizing, communities secured landmark victories affirming birthright citizenship and access to public education, establishing important precedents that broadened democratic participation and equal protection under the law.
In the decades to follow, this interlocking, grassroots efforts blossomed into work which acknowledged the intersection of civic engagement with safety, food, and land. Community leaders like Fannie Lou Hamer co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, launched the Freedom Farm Cooperative, and created the National Women’s Political Caucus, while revolutionary organizations like the Black Panther Party launched free breakfast programs, health clinics, and liberation schools. Through the Chicano Civil Rights Movement, artists, teachers, students, journalists, and labor organizers came together to advance social justice by challenging discrimination, while leaders like Dolores Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association, winning better wages, working conditions, and greater political power.
These efforts, which extended care, protection, and inclusion across the country set the stage for the freedom movements that would eventually secure the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and myriad labor protections, from collective bargaining to pesticide protections.
Following these landmark wins, queer and trans activists expanded the meaning of democracy to include bodily autonomy and freedom of identity. The Stonewall Uprising, led by Black and Brown trans women Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, spawned the creation of mutual aid groups, shelters for unhoused queer and trans youth, and community health responses during the HIV/AIDS crisis. These grassroots offerings built the momentum for major legal shifts, such as the legalization of same-sex marriage and passage anti-discrimination protections in employment and public life.
Over these decades, disability justice organizers also transformed our country’s spaces and policies to ensure greater inclusion for all people. The 504 Sit-in, which forced federal enforcement of disability anti-discrimination rules, resulted in the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, mandating curb cuts, ramps, accessible public transit, workplace accommodations, and protections against discrimination. Cases like Olmstead v. Lois Curtis affirmed the right of disabled people to live in community settings, while disabled activists like Stacy Milbern and Alice Wong built networks that centered interdependence and the leadership of those most impacted.
Each of these experiments of kinship and collectivism exists as blueprints of a democracy rooted in inclusion for all people. And across all movements, another throughline and lesson: democracy is something that we must nurture and create together.
Democracy Today and Tomorrow
Today, communities’ pursuit towards a multiracial democracy continues. As our voting rights, health care access, and civic engagement are further restricted, organizers persist, shifting what we know and embody, and expanding our collective understanding of what is possible.
- Organizations like the Working Families Education Fund, Black Voters Matter, and Black Futures Lab are building political power and expanding civic engagement in historically excluded communities by ensuring that people have the tools and information they need to participate fully.
- Groups like Narrative Initiative, TransLash Media, and The Triibe are shaping the stories that shape our world, understanding that democracy depends not only on policy, but on narrative, whose voices are heard, and whose lives are valued.
- Grassroots organizations like The Louisiana Organization for Refugees and Immigrants, The Workers Center for Racial Justice, New Disabled South, and Advocates for Trans Equality are cultivating safety and belonging in hyperlocal and deeply transformative ways, reminding us that a democracy that excludes people is not a democracy at all.
- Groups like YA-YA Network, People’s Budget Birmingham, and ACT4SA are building avenues for folks to strengthen grassroots leadership, have a voice in local governance, and shape public policy decisions, strengthening local democratic participation and social change.
At a moment when democracy is often reduced to what happens at the ballot box, the work of our grantee partners reminds us that democracy is much bigger than the polls; rather, it is about creating the conditions for people to have a voice, exercise agency, and shape the communities and institutions that affect their lives every day. And it expands our understanding of what democracy can be: a shared commitment to belonging, inclusion, and the power of people to participate fully in civic life.
Funding the Future
Today, as we mark 250 years of the American experiment and face a future that values “ideological extremism over people,” we at Borealis Philanthropy are issuing a charge to boldly resource and center the work and visions of our communities.
And as we continue this work, we are also evolving how we talk about it. What we once described through a narrower pillar focus is better understood as a broader commitment to making our money match our ideals—aligning how resources are invested, distributed, and stewarded with the values we seek to advance.
Read more about how we’re doubling our Fund for Trans Generation to meet this moment.
Building a more inclusive and participatory democracy requires more than any single strategy, institution, or sector can provide. Together, our efforts help move us closer to the larger promise of America: a home where we all have the opportunity to participate, contribute, and thrive.
At Borealis Philanthropy, we regard directly affected communities as the essential creative force in the larger arc of social change, and have built our organizations from the ground up as a vehicle to resource these communities. Our donor collaboratives fund brilliant, grassroots organizations and frontline communities that are devising solutions to complex societal problems.