Laryngitis.

I lost my voice last week, on the tail end of a lingering cold. It's only the second time in my life I can remember actually losing my voice. It’s an odd sensation, not having your voice come out the way you are expecting it to. More often, I'm just not entirely comfortable with my own voice. I spent most of my youth trying to avoid public speaking as much as possible. Whenever I would have to speak in front of class, I'd invariably be stopped part way and told to speak up. (Which didn't make it any easier when your goal was to be as inconspicuous as possible.) As an adult, I'm still much better at listening than speaking.

Perhaps as a result, I'm increasingly touched by the example of people who speak up, even when it might be uncomfortable, and grateful to live in a country that was established on the principle of protecting the rights of individuals to participate in public debate. We aren’t always perfect, but our country would be greatly more imperfect if people weren't able to air their differences of opinion.

I was thinking about this on the trip to/from Thanksgiving in Alabama, as we drove along US 80 between Montgomery and Selma. On the way back, we stopped at the base of the Edmund-Pettus Bridge in Selma, where a small monument there recognizes Bloody Sunday and the Selma-Montgomery marches. I was also reminded that it was 55 years ago that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, AL. She was not the first to do so, but her actions sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and became a defining symbol of the Civil Rights movement.

While there were Civil Rights demonstrations in the big population centers like Chicago, Boston, and New York, I'm most struck by the Montgomeries and the Selmas and the schools and the lunch counters... where in the face of direct economic, political, and even physical opposition, people spoke up where they lived and where they worked and said, "This is who I am, and I deserve to be treated with respect."

Because people spoke up, much has changed since 1965. Yet, I found driving through Selma bittersweet. Lining the city center are some beautiful old buildings and historic houses, many of which are now vacant or more often rundown. The city was a reminder to me not only of the historic victories of that time, but sadly of the social and economic segregation that still exist today.

Amid social and economic uncertainty and an increasingly shrill public discourse, I both am grateful to not have to face such direct opposition and wonder if I would have the courage to speak up if I did. Regardless, I am reminded that those of us with relatively more security should be paying attention to how our actions and our voices impact those around us, especially those who, for whatever reason, are unable to speak for themselves.