No Action = No Change

Advocates,

There comes a moment in every movement when learning is no longer enough.

There comes a moment when reading another report, attending another meeting, sharing another article, or shaking our heads at another injustice becomes a way of standing still.

History rarely remembers the people who knew what was wrong.

It remembers the people who decided they could no longer leave the work for someone else.

Otto and Elise Hampel were not famous. They were not leaders. They were an ordinary working-class couple in Nazi Germany who, after losing their son in the war, quietly began writing postcards condemning the regime and leaving them in stairwells and public places across Berlin. Each card was an act of defiance in a system built to crush dissent.

Nearly all of those postcards were turned in to the Gestapo. The Hampels were eventually arrested, tried, and executed. By every visible measure, their effort failed. They did not spark a movement. They did not bring down the regime. They did not even know if anyone ever read their words.

And yet, they acted.

Not because success was guaranteed.

Because conscience demanded action.

Their story forces a question that is just as urgent for us today: What do ordinary people do when they clearly see what is wrong—and understand that silence helps it continue?

Our communities struggle, we face the same question: will we act?

For years we have educated ourselves. We have learned the laws. We have studied the regulations. We have documented violations. We have collected stories. We have become experts in explaining what is happening to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Education matters. But education without action changes nothing.

Awareness without a plan for implementation changes nothing.

Truth without accountability changes nothing.

The measure of our advocacy is not how much we know.

The measure is what we do with what we know.

The coming election is not simply another opportunity to cast a ballot. It is an opportunity to shape the conversation before ballots are ever printed.

Experienced advocates understand this.

Campaigns begin long before Election Day. Candidates are listening long before they take office. They are deciding which issues matter, which communities organize, and which voters they cannot afford to ignore.

This is where our work begins. 

These three Congressional Representatives voted against those with IDD:

Jeff Van Drew 2nd District

Chris Smith 4th District

Tom Kean, Jr. 7th District

As of this writing, NONE has condemned the DOJ memo calling for an end to funding HCBS-the program that ALL of us use to support our loved ones with IDD.

We can change this.

Our responsibility is to meet with candidates challenging them, ask difficult questions, educate them about Home and Community-Based Services, person-centered planning, self-determination, and disability rights, and insist on measurable commitments—not promises, but actions.

We should ask every candidate, regardless of party:

Will you protect the civil rights of people with disabilities? How?

Will you defend community living? How?

Will you strengthen oversight of programs that fail the people they serve? How?

Will you work with us to ensure laws already on the books are actually implemented? How?

Will you meet with our community and listen?

These conversations must happen before Election Day—not after.

Every phone call.

Every meeting.

Every letter.

Every town hall question.

Every conversation with a neighbor.

Every volunteer hour.

Every informed vote.

These are our postcards.

Many will feel as though they disappear into the machinery of politics without changing a thing.

Do them anyway.

Movements are not built by dramatic moments.

They are built by thousands of ordinary people deciding that silence is no longer acceptable.

The Hampels never knew their witness of eugenics would survive them.

Neither do we.

But history has a way of remembering those who chose courage over resignation.

Let them find action.

Get involved.

Volunteer.

Meet candidates.

Attend town halls.

Ask the hard questions.

Bring another family with you.

Hold every elected official accountable to the promises they make.

Document what happens.

And keep showing up.

Because the future of our community will not be written by the people who merely understood the problem.

It will be written by the people who acted..