Every October, I notice how the wind carries both beauty and unease. The leaves change and fall, reminding us that no season lasts forever. Our country is caught in its own season of change, one that has been building for decades. America is facing a deep question: who it really is and who it wants to be.

I often think about how far we’ve come. Not long ago, people risked everything just to register to vote. Some didn’t make it home alive. A woman like Fannie Lou Hamer stood before Congress, her voice breaking but unwavering, speaking the truth of a nation that tried to silence her. Forty years later, this same nation elected a Black president. Those moments prove that the impossible can become reality when people refuse to back down.

But I also think about how fragile progress can feel. The same government that can pass laws to protect rights can also dismantle them. We’ve seen protections for voting challenged. We’ve seen Affirmative Action, once a tool to open doors, rolled back. We’ve seen promises made to Native people left unfulfilled while treaties gather dust in federal archives.

Government is supposed to represent the will of the people, yet too often it bends to the will of power. That’s the part that hurts: watching the very structures that claim to uphold democracy turn against the communities who have fought hardest to expand it. It is a reminder that rights are not gifts from above; they are controlled, generation after generation.

Still, I believe backlash from our government system is not the end; it’s evidence that change is working. Every step forward in this country has come with resistance. After emancipation came Jim Crow. After Civil Rights came mass incarceration. Today, as communities of color, immigrants, and Indigenous nations’ voices push for justice, we see the same playbook: divide, suppress, and exhaust nations. Yet history reminds us, the arc still bends forward.

In my work with government leaders, I see how policy decisions impact real lives. A line in a budget decides whether Native health clinics have enough funding to hire staff. A ruling in a courtroom decides whether tribes can protect their land or watch it be taken again. Government is not abstract; it shapes whether our people heal or continue to carry wounds. And when decisions are made without us, the cost is heavy.

Yet I have also seen the power of showing up. When Native youth reclaim traditions, when elders testify, when communities gather in council, we remind government that we are still here. That we are not subjects but sovereign nations. That democracy is not whole without us.

Unity is not optional; it is essential. The oldest tactic of oppression is to turn communities against one another, to convince us that our struggles are separate. But we are tied together. Black liberation, Native sovereignty, immigrant justice, and women’s rights rise or fall together. Division only serves those who already hold power.

When I see government officials pit one community’s needs against another, I know it for what it is: distraction. When I see leaders stir up fear of demographic change, I know it is because they fear losing control. But their fear cannot stop what is already happening. America is changing, not because it chooses to, but because its people demand it.

Scripture says, “Let justice thunder down like a waterfall; let righteousness flow like a mighty river that never runs dry.” Justice is not supposed to be quiet, contained, or delayed. It is supposed to roar. Rivers do not flow because someone grants permission; they flow because they must. Our job is to keep pushing until the floodgates open.

I know it isn’t easy. Change rarely feels comfortable. It can feel like loss, like stripping away what we thought was secure. But change also clears space for renewal. Just as trees lose their leaves to prepare for spring, we too must let go of what no longer serves us, old fears, old divisions, old lies about who belongs in this country.

What gives me hope is remembering that no storm lasts forever. Backlash may howl, but it cannot hold back the turning of seasons. And when people come together, Indigenous, Black, Brown, Asian, white, immigrant, allied, the winds of change grow stronger than any government that tries to silence them.

This season, I choose to believe in that strength. I choose to believe that justice delayed is not justice denied, but justice building. I choose to believe that the government, no matter how flawed, can be forced to listen when people refuse to be ignored.

The question is not whether America will change. It already is. The question is whether we will fight for a future worthy of all who came before us. A future where government is not an opposition but a partner. A future where justice does not trickle, but thunders.
That is the season we are stepping into now. And it belongs to all of us.