On September 4, 1957, fifteen‑year‑old Dorothy Counts walked through a jeering crowd to enter Harry Harding High School — one of the first Black students to integrate Charlotte’s public schools. The photographs of her steady, dignified walk traveled the world and stirred a nation’s conscience. Nearly seventy years later, she remains one of Charlotte’s most revered civil‑rights figures and a tireless advocate for public education. Here, she reflects on courage, change, and why her ballot still matters.

Rev. Reggie Tuggle’s life is a testament to endurance and hope. Born to a teenaged mother and raised in a Denver attic apartment, he went on to grow a small congregation into a thousand‑member church, build a community health clinic, and help found a school that today serves hundreds of children. Now based in Charlotte, where he co‑founded Restorative Justice CLT, he brings a preacher’s clarity to questions of democracy and duty — and makes the case for voting as an act of faith in one another.