Hope Is a Form of Resistance

For the ones who refused to surrender to despair

Hope is not passive.
It does not whisper
only when the storm subsides.
It roars
in the middle of the flood,
grips the broken hand
and says, Hold on.
Hope is not a wish—
it is a weapon.

Hope is a form of resistance.
It walks into a room
where futures have been stolen
and plants a seed anyway.
It speaks in courtrooms
where silence is expected,
and sings in classrooms
where books have forgotten our names.

Hope wears work boots,
not wings.
It is built
in soup kitchens,
in protest lines,
in pews where tired saints
still raise holy hands
for justice not yet seen.

Hope stands
when grief says sit.
It rises
when oppression says kneel.
It keeps marching
when the road
has been paved
with disappointment.

There are names
we remember
because hope kept them alive.
Songs that survived
because someone believed
the melody mattered.
Movements that breathed
because a mother refused
to let her child
grow up
believing nothing could change.

Hope resists
not because it is blind,
but because it sees too much
to give up.
It remembers the lynching tree
and still dares
to hang lights
in the branches.
It hears the verdict
and still votes.
It buries its dead
and still builds.

Hope is not naïve.
It knows the weight of history,
but carries it anyway.
It is not quiet—
it’s the drumbeat
beneath the chant,
the tremble in the voice
that still says yes
when the world has said no.

So we carry hope
like fire
in our chests.
We pass it
like torches
down crowded streets
and family tables.
We protect it,
not because it is fragile,
but because it is sacred.

And in the days
when the sky grows heavy,
when your voice feels small,
when the world seems unmoved—
remember:

Hope is not for the untested.
Hope is for the bold.
Hope is how we resist
without becoming what we resist.

Hope is how we rise,
how we rebuild,
how we remember
that we are still here—
not by accident,
but by audacity.

Because hope,
true hope,
will always be
the beginning
of freedom.