I grew up in Connecticut in the 1960s.
And looking back, I realize I had absolutely no idea what the hell was going on.
I was 10, 11, 12 years old.
Vietnam was raging.
Civil rights was changing America.
There were demonstrations and marches and moratoriums.
And there I was thinking:
“Cool. Are my friends going?”
I went to a Vietnam War moratorium.
I went to a be-in.
I went to a happening.
Now, I couldn’t have explained the difference between a be-in and a happening.
I’m still not entirely sure.
I think at a be-in, everybody sat around trying to change the world.
At a happening, everybody sat around trying to figure out what the hell was happening.
But I loved it.
There were musicians.
Artists.
Signs.
Crazy clothes.
People talking.
People arguing.
People laughing.
And everywhere you looked, somebody was making something.
Remember, these were analog times.
There were no smartphones.
No TikTok.
No Instagram.
No YouTube.
If you wanted to stare at something all afternoon, you had to find an aquarium.
We didn’t carry the entire accumulated knowledge of human civilization around in our pockets.
Hell, if you wanted to know something, you had to find somebody’s father who owned an encyclopedia.
And entertainment was different.
If you wanted to hear music?
Somebody started a band.
If you wanted theater?
Somebody put on a play.
If you wanted to tell everybody what you thought?
You painted it on a piece of cardboard and went outside.
What a concept.
Social media involved…
being social.
And here’s the part I’ve only really understood recently.
I thought I was just having fun.
I wasn’t attending those events because I was some 11-year-old political intellectual.
I wasn’t sitting around reading the Pentagon Papers over my morning Cocoa Puffs.
I wanted to be where the action was.
But while I was there having fun…
something was happening to me.
I was listening.
I was watching.
I was meeting people.
I was hearing ideas I’d never heard before.
And without anybody sitting me down and saying,
“John, today we’re going to teach you civic engagement,”
I was becoming engaged.
I learned that the world had problems.
I learned that people could disagree about those problems.
And most importantly, I learned something I’ve carried around for nearly 60 years:
ordinary people could actually do something about them.
That’s the spirit I want to bring back.
And I want to be very clear.
I don’t mean we need to recreate the politics of the 1960s.
Good Lord.
We had enough problems the first time.
I’m talking about something else.
The possibility of the ’60s.
That wonderful sense that the future hadn’t been decided yet.
That we could make things.
Change things.
Challenge things.
That regular people didn’t have to sit in the bleachers while somebody else decided what happened to their country.
And somehow we’ve lost a little of that.
Today we’ve got more ways to communicate than human beings have ever had…
and sometimes it seems like we talk to each other less.
We’ve got 5,000 Facebook friends and don’t know the guy three doors down.
We can watch a demonstration happening 3,000 miles away…
without ever walking outside our own house.
We’ve become incredibly good at watching.
Watching politics.
Watching outrage.
Watching other people’s lives.
Watching America happen.
And that’s exactly what I’ve been thinking about during these interviews I’ve been doing.
I’ve been going up to complete strangers and asking them questions about America.
And I’ve discovered something almost embarrassingly simple:
Talking to people works.
You ask somebody a question.
They answer.
You listen.
And pretty soon that person isn’t a demographic.
They’re not a Republican.
They’re not a Democrat.
They’re not an algorithm.
They’re Bill.
Or Susan.
Or the bartender.
Or the barber.
Or the 22-year-old trying to figure out how he’ll ever afford a house.
And that’s when I started thinking:
Maybe the next Truth Party gathering shouldn’t really be a political rally at all.
Maybe it should be…
a happening.
A be-in.
A civic festival.
Call it whatever the hell you want.
I want to fill LeBauer Park with music.
Art.
Food.
Laughter.
Conversation.
Put those 100 voices I’ve been collecting up on a giant screen.
Let Greensboro hear Greensboro.
Bring musicians.
Bring artists.
Bring young people.
Bring old people.
Bring Democrats.
Bring Republicans.
Bring independents.
Bring people who don’t know the difference between the Senate and a salad.
Especially bring them.
And don’t come because you’re supposed to agree with me.
That’s the old model.
Come because something interesting is happening.
Come because there’s music.
Come because your friends are coming.
Come because you want to meet somebody you don’t know.
Come because you want to answer one of those four questions yourself.
Come because citizenship doesn’t have to feel like a root canal.
Maybe democracy could actually be…
fun.
Because that’s what happened to that little kid in Connecticut.
I showed up looking for the action.
And somewhere between the music, the people, the signs and all that glorious confusion…
I became a citizen.
Nearly 60 years later, I’m beginning to understand what a gift that was.
And I’d like another generation to experience it.
Not the politics of the ’60s.
The possibility of the ’60s.
The creativity.
The community.
The optimism.
The rebellion.
The absolutely crazy belief that ordinary people could get together and make tomorrow different from today.
That’s what I want in LeBauer Park.
100 voices.
One community.
And then everybody else gets a turn.
So bring a friend.
Bring your kids.
Bring your ideas.
Hell, bring a tambourine.
Just bring yourself.
We’ll provide the music.
We’ll provide the microphone.
We’ll provide the place.
And together, maybe we’ll rediscover something we used to know:
The future isn’t something we sit around and wait for.
The future is something we make.
I’ll see you at the Happening.
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