Let’s travel back in time to 2020, the year the world shut down as coronavirus spread. I was sixteen years old, a sophomore in high school. Suddenly, my friends and I no longer communicated in the cafeteria during lunchtime or on the way to class. Our lives moved online.

I may not have a vote, but I do have a voice, and I intend to use it. Encouraging others to engage in the democratic process became my way of contributing, even if indirectly, to US democracy. For every person I convinced to register or to show up at the polls, I felt like I was speaking up for those of us left out. 

Every evening on my walk from Drexel’s library, I watch packed SEPTA buses pass by. Many are packed with healthcare workers from nearby hospitals and riders returning from medical appointments. Many are packed with students returning from college. Others are traveling to restaurants in Center City or a Flyers game. Over 750,000 rides are taken on public transit daily through SEPTA.

I used to wish my parents had forged the date on my birth certificate. Or at the very least, I’d been born two weeks earlier. 

Each day, another 50 or so 17-year-olds in Philadelphia turn 18, and soon it’ll be time to hand them the keys.

There were many times I wasn’t allowed to leave the house because of demonstrations happening downtown.

Isabel Engel provides ways to get your friends out and to the polls during election season!

By Lila Dubois My grandmother hasn’t voted in a presidential election since 1992. She’s one of the most politically opinionated people I...

By Maya Hairston “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court...

2020 has been a year of firsts for me. My first (legal) drink, first pandemic, first apartment, first presidential election, first Zoom...

When I stepped out of my house on Beyer Avenue on November 3rd, I took small sips of my coffee, believing I would have time to finish...

“Which one is the orange guy?” I tried not to laugh behind my mask. “The President?” I asked. He nodded. “He’s Republican,” I said...

voted in my first election this year. I was six years old when I went to “vote” with my mom for the first time. We approached the front...

6:00 a.m. is the time I was told to arrive but I got there at 6:20. The address—1124 N. 11th Street—was where I was supposed to work for...

Someone has slit in half the 30-foot-long Black Lives Matter banner outside our St. Luke and the Epiphany. For the second time.

Intergenerational stories of voter participation to inspire your vote Voice That Jawn is a six-part podcast miniseries by #VoteThatJawn...

For our nation to heal, we must open our ears and hearts to the messages our young people are sending us By Lorene Cary This article was...

By Carson Eckhard This article originally appeared in Philly Metro. You can view the original post here. In my Tampa, Florida high school...

I walked up the slight hill on Ogontz and Olney to arrive in front of what used to be my educational sanctuary. Overgrown weeds seemed to in