Everything Changes, Don't Nothing Stay The Same by Jennifer Reed Cox

September 1, 2025

When I would talk to a family friend, Ida Lewis Branch, she would admonish me to not lament the change, as it was inevitable, but instead to face it fearlessly. 

Ida's parents had been slaves, then sharecroppers, then farmers of their own extensive lands in Tallahassee. She had worked for wealthy people and had worked with my own Granny at a Jacksonville hospital. 

Ida had seen things change. Not enough things to make her sit in the front seat when Daddy picked her up to come visit. But enough.

In the 70s our 8th grade teacher led an ERA march through the school. We made posters and marched all over Lakeside Middle School in Orange Park​. We sat in class with kids of all colors and felt like change was coming. Better things were surely coming for Americans. 

I have lots of ideas about why we didn't get where we thought we were going. 

Today, Labor Day, we celebrate some of the great changes--better working conditions, better wages, shorter hours that the workers before us fought for. 

But today we also are feeling changes coming that aren't that great for workers in the USA, maybe not for the USA as a country. 

Timothy Snyder writes great articles.  click here to read today's.  I hope you will read it and subscribe to his substack.  Today he started with a quote from Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias”. He reminds us that don't nothing stay the same, but fighting against what is happening is worth the effort. 

Read his blog. Then read On Tyrrany. Then read On Freedom. Then choose a way to fight and get involved.  

Everything changes.

We have a chance to shape that change.