Mustafa Santiago Ali
Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali is the Executive Vice President of Conservation & Justice for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), former Interim Chief of Programs at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and Instructor at American University. He is the Founder and CEO of Revitalization Strategies. He also serves as a commissioner for The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). He is an award-winning writer and poet focused on social justice. Dr. Ali is frequently seen on television, including appearances on MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, VICE, FUSE, BET, National Geographic, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and Democracy NOW! Mustafa is also a regular guest on Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black News Channel, Tavis Smiley Show, The Dean Obeidallah Show, and many others…
Editor's Note: This poem is the 91st in our Democracy and Hope Series. This series will highlight hopeful aspects about our Democracy using various genres including poems, interviews, short stories, and articles about political events
I have been to the mountain, and from its height, I saw a dream deferred, like a song suspended mid-note, its melody stretched thin across the hollers of this land. The year is 2025, and I ask not “how far we have come”— but “how much further we must go.”
What does it mean to march in an age where screens scream louder than sermons? Where justice has traded pulpits for hashtags, and prophets sit silenced by algorithms? I see freedom still fighting to catch its breath, lungs crushed under the weight of systems that call themselves fair while bartering equity for ease.
We were promised a table of brotherhood, but I still see empty chairs, and plates filled with crumbs masquerading as loaves. Our progress is no straight line; it is a trembling spiral, sometimes dizzying, sometimes divine.
But hear me: the fire of hope has not gone cold. It lives in the hands of those who build bridges from the splinters of broken dreams. It lives in the eyes of children who see beyond the narrow margins of skin to the boundless chapters of soul.
Where do we go from here? We go to the unfinished, to the undone. We bind the wounds still bleeding and tear down the walls still standing. We must kneel not in defeat, but in preparation— for the rising.
I say we hold the line, not with fists clenched in fury, but with arms open wide, ready to bear the weight of the world and the hope of a tomorrow worthy of its name.
The arc of the moral universe is still bending, but it bends not by divine chance, but by human hands—yours, and mine.
So rise, beloved community. Rise.
©️MustafaSantiagoAli
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