Jess Burnquest is the Vice President of Education and Youth Empowerment at Creative Visions where the premier human rights programs Rock Your World and Rock Your Rights are under her purview. She is also the co-founder and author of Kindred Spirits, a human rights educational blog sponsored by the American Federation of Teachers. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Time, NPR, Sundress, Persona, Natural Bridge, Ms. Magazine and various online and print journals. She is a recipient of the Joan Frazier Memorial Award for the Arts at ASU and has been honored with a Sylvan Silver Apple Award.

We are here at a pivotal moment in the United States ... our democracy and our rights to our privacy and long time freedoms are at stake with the coming election of 2022

We seem to be so lost in how to understand where we are going ..i think today Jess brought us back down to earth and really spoke about solutions.

In my work in the last 25 years, I have had the opportunity to meet, protest, and to march with today's generation of powerful young voices who will lead us out of this disappointing era of small-minded political radicalism and racism. There is a time-honored phrase I have heard since marching against the Vietnam War: We are the ones we have been waiting for " and that phrase perfectly reflects our times. when I think of today's 18- 35 year vote.... – these past three episodes have brought together honest conversations about women's rights, the core values of privacy that must be returned to all women, and how we must protect the way of life we thought we had in America... I ask myself today: Are we still a democracy? we all know what is at stake and we know that our vote can reverse the government's control over our bodies, our lives, and our futures.