Citizens and writers came together for Writers Resist at the Englert Theater on Jan. 15 afternoon to conclude President Obama’s final weekend in office, sharing writing and anxieties about changes in America’s democratic ideals.

The Iowa City event was organized by John Kenyon, the executive director of the Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature, and Andrea Wilson, the founder and executive director of the Iowa Writers’ House. It was one of more than 100 events held nationwide to inspire communities of writers to have a “reinauguration” about their ideals of democracy, said Erin Belieu, a poet who launched the national movement.

After this past weekend’s series of events, Writers Resist is becoming an organization called Write Our Democracy. A lasting movement would exist to support the people who have been targeted throughout the recent campaign season, Belieu said.

“Writers have often taken the lead of imagining the world we want to live in,” she said. “Our country was founded in many ways on writing and what writing could move people toward.”

Belieu, the mother of a teenage son, said young people play a special role in resistance movements. She said adults are supposed to be “the caretakers of this political system,” but instead, she believes they are handing future generations “a big, fat mess.”

“We have a responsibility to do what we can, because young people are the future,” she said. “… We have a responsibility to help them create a world they want to live in.”

The audience present at the Englert seemed to share in Belieu’s recognition of the role young people play in the political process, with students from local middle schools and high schools receiving the longest and loudest rounds of applause.

“You’ve seen a testament here today to just how talented our young writers are,” Kenyon said, eliciting another round of applause from the audience, after Maya Claussen, a City High student, read original poems on stage.

Local musician Ben Schmidt also took a moment before taking the stage to play music acknowledging the courage younger readers exhibited by sharing their work.

“I wasn’t sure when I came up here whether or not I was going to sing [my new piece], but I’ve seen a lot of courage in this room from a lot of the young people,” he said.

Jasmine Williams, a student from Northwest Junior High, read a piece titled “Black Lives Matter” at the event, touching on how to act with boldness, particularly as a black female.

“Courage is an action,” she said. “Courage is the quietest voice at the beginning of the night. It speaks out to you: I will try again tomorrow. I’m black, but I should not be afraid to use my voice. My thoughts, my opinions, my ideas are just as important as anybody else’s.”

Regardless of political affiliation, those who helped organize the event or read their work encouraged finding nonpartisan ways to move forward and preserve democracy.

“We have to stop being passive in the face of what we know,” Wilson said, reading from an essay from Marilynne Robinson, a renowned writer and former professor at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. “If this is a living democracy, then there should be a public conscience able to travel us deeply for injury done to those who might seem least like us whom it has been convenient to forget.”