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Alice Walker is an American novelist, poet, and activist whose 1982 novel The Color Purple won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, making her the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer for fiction. A veteran of the civil rights movement, Walker has spent her entire career examining the intersection of race, gender, and power — and insisting, in her work and her life, that the people society most systematically disempowers are the ones who most urgently need to understand their own strength.

June 12 is the World Day Against Child Labour, established by the International Labour Organization, and also National Loving Day, commemorating the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia that struck down anti-miscegenation laws. World Day Against Child Labour and National Loving Day are both, at their core, about the abuse of power — and the refusal to accept it. Child labor exploits the powerlessness of children and families with no economic alternatives. Anti-miscegenation laws weaponized the state against people whose only offense was love. Walker's line cuts to the center of both: the first step in every form of injustice is convincing its victims that they are powerless to resist it. Richard and Mildred Loving thought they had power — and they were right. Every person who has ever fought for a child's right to education has thought the same. That belief is where every just outcome begins.