When I published the first chapter of How Power Really Works, I realized I had never shared the introduction that explains why I started writing this series.
This project grew out of concerns about the direction of our country and lessons I learned growing up during segregation in Virginia. Before I continue with future chapters, I wanted to share the introduction that frames the series as a whole.
— Charlene Butts Ligon
Introduction
I did not begin writing these chapters because I wanted to revisit the past for sentimental reasons. I began writing because I have become increasingly concerned about the direction of our country.
Over the last several years, I have found myself recognizing patterns I hoped Americans would never grow comfortable with again. Not identical patterns. History never repeats itself that neatly. But familiar ones. Fear being used to shape behavior. People becoming cautious about what they say publicly. Voting rights treated as negotiable. Groups of Americans increasingly encouraged to see one another not as fellow citizens, but as threats.
As these debates grew louder, I found myself thinking more often about my own experiences growing up in Virginia during segregation. I thought about the lessons I learned from my mother, voting rights activist Evelyn Butts. I thought about the people who risked jobs, reputations, friendships, and sometimes their safety to challenge systems that many others accepted as simply the way things were.
For many people, these concerns are theoretical or political. For me, they are personal.
I grew up in Jim Crow America. I lived through segregation, voter suppression, intimidation, and the long struggle for civil rights. I watched how systems maintain themselves not only through laws and violence, but also through fear, silence, bureaucracy, and the pressure placed on ordinary people to stay quiet and stay in line.
Over time, I began to realize that many of the lessons from that period were not really about the past at all. They were lessons about how power works.
That realization is what led to this project.
