This week, the Democracy Spring, part of the growing coalition calling on Congress to “end the corruption of big money in our politics”, culminated its march  from Philadelphia to Capitol Hill. On Monday, the group staged a nonviolent sit-in that resulted in over 400 arrests — considered an impressive number by Washington sit-in standards.

And this weekend, thousands more will join in Washington D.C. for the Democracy Awakening, a weekend of teach-ins, demonstrations, music and a Rally for Democracy.

Frances Moore Lappé shared her experience walking with the Democracy Spring in a piece on Yes Magazine, titled “What I Learned From My March With Democracy Spring.”

Of the march, Lappé writes that the “political march is a tool for social transformation in itself. This one gave me a taste of the connected, empowered society I’m working to create.”

Yesterday was the most important day of my life. I walked up to the Capitol building and sat on the steps with more than 400 people. When asked to move, we refused and were arrested. We committed nonviolent civil disobedience together to protest the power of money in politics and support the restoration of real democracy.

I was arrested in the afternoon and didn’t get out until midnight. I joined the others at a holding facility that looked like a warehouse, and we spent our time there doing the same thing we’d done on the 140-mile march that brought us here from Philadelphia. We talked about why we were here and why we felt as strongly as we did.

For me, democracy is all about feeling strongly. The very word makes my heart go pitter-patter. Democracy is the way we work together to meet our deepest nonphysical needs: for connection, meaning, and power. Tragically, this promise has been corrupted by a concept of democracy so thin that it’s let a wealthy minority drown out the voices of the people.

Will you be joining the Democracy Awakening? Click here to RSVP.

To read the full article on Yes Magazine, click here.