The Center for Democracy and Citizenship

• Each of us is democracy
• Democracy comes to life when we do its work
• Democracy wanes when we set its burdens aside
• When people do the work of democracy, the future can be better than the past.

Take it. There’s no charge, it’s yours. It has been since you drew your first breath. It’s your birthright; a universal hope you share with all people.

But democracy is just an idea. It only comes to life when we do it.

So take it. If you want democracy to be worth taking, you must be willing to pay a price. It means doing the hard, often frustrating, deeply rewarding work of citizenship. It means working with people we don’t know, who get us out of our comfort zone, with whom we disagree.

You see, we all are democracy, with our diversity of viewpoints, cultures and backgrounds.

Democracy is the work of the people, of you and me. If we stop doing the work, the value of the idea vanishes, politics becomes narrow and nasty, and the door of tyranny opens.

What is democracy? It changes forever the moment we touch it. Ask it to serve and it begins to fade, take up its burdens and it is refreshed. Democracy is like jazz, always new, always changing, the negotiation of a million different interests.

The Center for Democracy and Citizenship has a vision of the public work and politics needed to create a common world. We have deep faith in the capacities of all people to do the work.