Why Your Voice Matters—Even When They Pretend It Doesn’t

We’ve all heard it. The weary sigh, the cynical shrug, the dismissive remark: “Why bother calling your representatives? Why show up to protest? They don’t care.”

This argument has become the lullaby of the disillusioned. It sounds comforting in a dark, hopeless sort of way—like an excuse to stay home, keep quiet, and let the powerful have their way. But history laughs in the face of such defeatism. Because history is crystal clear: raising our voices, together, changes everything.

Vietnam War Protests: The Power of Persistent Outcry

Let’s rewind to the 1960s. At first, the American public accepted the Vietnam War. Politicians fed us fear of communism, and most people swallowed it whole. But as the body bags came home, campus after campus erupted. The protests were messy, loud, and inconvenient. Millions marched in Washington, D.C., while students at Kent State paid with their lives after the National Guard opened fire.

The government tried to dismiss protesters as “radicals” or “unpatriotic.” Sound familiar? Yet over time, their voices grew too loud to ignore. By 1968, public opinion had turned. Lyndon Johnson announced he wouldn’t seek re-election. Congress started tightening the purse strings. By 1973, U.S. combat operations ended. And in 1975, the war itself was over.

Would it have ended without protest? Doubtful. Those in power only budged because ordinary Americans made it impossible to carry on.

Civil Rights: From the Streets to the Law Books

Or consider the Civil Rights Movement. Imagine if Black Americans had said, “Well, segregation is the law, and they don’t care what we think.” We’d still be living in a Jim Crow world.

Instead, people marched. They filled buses, they staged sit-ins, they endured beatings, hoses, and dogs in Birmingham. They walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, knowing the police would meet them with clubs.

And guess what? The nation saw it. The world saw it. The shame of segregation was broadcast on television screens everywhere. Public pressure skyrocketed, and politicians who “didn’t care” suddenly cared very much. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were not gifts handed down from benevolent leaders. They were wrestled into existence by millions of raised voices, sacrificed weekends, and broken bones.

Women’s Rights: From the Ballot Box to the Workplace

Women didn’t get the right to vote because politicians woke up one day and decided, “Sure, let’s let them in.” It was the result of decades of suffrage marches, hunger strikes, and endless organizing. When women chained themselves to fences and refused to be silenced, the political establishment had no choice but to respond.

And it didn’t stop with the vote. The Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960s and ’70s challenged workplace discrimination, reproductive rights, and equality in education. Title IX, Roe v. Wade (since gutted but still pivotal for decades), and the normalization of women in leadership roles all stem from relentless activism.

Again: the voices of women, dismissed for centuries, ultimately changed laws and lives.

Union Workers: The Fight for Basic Dignity

Think about the labor movement. The weekend, the eight-hour day, child labor protections—all things we take for granted today—didn’t appear because CEOs decided to be kind. They were won through strikes, protests, and sometimes violent clashes.

The 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City killed 146 garment workers, mostly immigrant women, locked inside by bosses who wanted to prevent theft. That tragedy sparked massive protests and demands for reform. Out of that public outrage came modern workplace safety laws.

Union power, built by generations of workers willing to risk jobs and lives, forced politicians to pass protections we now call “common sense.” Without those voices? We’d still be sending children into coal mines.

The Pattern of Progress

The pattern is clear: nothing changes until people refuse to shut up. Every time progress has been made, it’s because citizens filled the streets, clogged the phone lines, and made themselves impossible to ignore.

So when someone tells you, “They don’t care,” here’s the truth: they don’t care—until we make them care.

That’s the beauty and the burden of democracy. It only works when we show up. Silence is the gift the powerful want most from you.

Our Turn

History isn’t some dusty story. It’s a map. It tells us what works. Calling your representative, protesting in the streets, organizing your community—it works. Not instantly. Not easily. But inevitably.

Every generation has had to raise its voice to secure the freedoms the previous one won. Now it’s our turn. If we stay quiet, we become the footnote in history that said, “They didn’t even try.”

Modern Parallels: The Story Isn’t Over

Think this is all dusty history? Look around.

• Marriage Equality: In the early 2000s, LGBTQ couples faced bans in state after state. Through relentless advocacy, protests, and legal battles—often in the streets and at courthouses—public opinion shifted. By 2015, the Supreme Court recognized marriage equality nationwide. That didn’t happen because politicians were brave. It happened because citizens refused to back down.
• Black Lives Matter: After the deaths of Michael Brown, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others, millions filled the streets worldwide. That pressure changed laws in cities, shifted police budgets, and even forced corporations to confront systemic racism. The conversations on justice we have today wouldn’t exist without BLM’s persistence.
• Climate Strikes: Youth movements led by Greta Thunberg and millions of students worldwide have dragged climate change back to the center of the global conversation. Governments that once ignored the crisis are now forced to at least pretend urgency—and in some countries, enact it—because young people refused to be silent.
• Right to Vote
• Body Autonomy and Reproductive Rights
• Book Bans
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
• Vaccine Access

AND NOW IT SEEMS WE MUST EARN MUCH OF WHAT WAS GAINED ON THE PAST!

My family and I have personally enjoyed many of the gains others fought for in the past. To dishonor those gains silence as gains are rolled back? HELL NO!

So make the call, I will! March in the protest, I will! Hold the sign, I will! Refuse to shut up, ABSOLUTELY! Because if history teaches us anything, it’s this: the only guarantee of failure is silence.

Julie Bolejack, MBA