Democracy Begins at City Hall

This New Year’s Day was freezing cold. Newton City Hall, though, buzzed with life as my BranchOut group and I made our way upstairs through the crowds. The inauguration of Marc Laredo as the 32nd Mayor of Newton, Massachusetts, was about to begin. 

The audience in the City Council Chamber included people from all walks of life. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey was there, as was Chief Justice Kimberly Budd of the Supreme Judicial Court, both to the side of the podium. Several state representatives and senators, a group of firefighters in dress uniform, a troop of Boy Scouts, and locals who had come to see the swearing-in looked on. They were old and young, black, white, and Asian– America in miniature, packed ten, maybe fifteen deep in the pews, filling the space up such that an usher had to call out for people to watch from upstairs or from another room. 

In Governor Healey’s speech from the podium, she said that “when you think about the birth of American democracy, it really starts with local government, it was the people from towns and cities across what became Massachusetts who volunteered to defend their communities, who stepped up in the American Revolution.” I saw the sheer number of people in the chamber that day, and those remarks led me to think about how democracy works in the modern day. 

Almost 250 years ago, three men wrote on a thin, fragile piece of parchment that “all men are created equal.” We, the heirs of the union they founded, must work to make sure it survives. Democracy is, ultimately, the system of rule by the people, and the current administration’s clear contempt for the rule of law and the rule of the people means we must work together to ensure that ultimate authority remains in the hands of the people. Democracy, too, begins at the grassroots, in public libraries, schools, and city halls. Ballots in boxes. People are freely discussing and debating with one another. Sincerely advocating for what may seem like fairly dull issues, like overnight parking bans or housing development. Working with the institutions we have and with each other is the purest, most direct form of democracy there is. 

Democracy only survives when people care about participating in it. Will you?

About the Author

Oliver Chi is a leader of the BranchOut! Newton Chapter. As a junior at Newton North High School in Newton, MA, he has a strong interest in history and community involvement. Through AmeriCorps, he assisted with the 2024 election by guiding voters through procedures and supporting the overall process. Oliver is a member of Newton North’s varsity History Team. He wrote an independent research paper on the impact of the War of 1812 on American nationalism, which was later published in the American Journal of Student Research.