1776 Was Only the Beginning

Series Introduction 

Two hundred fifty years ago, the Boston Tea Party was not just a protest over tea—it was a rebellion against corporate rule. 

The British East India Company was granted special privileges by the Crown, allowed to undercut local merchants, and shielded by a distant government that ignored the will of the people. Colonists recognized what we still face today: when corporations are given political power, democracy erodes.

Move to Amend carries forward that unfinished revolution, working to end the legal doctrines that grant corporations constitutional rights and treat money as free speech. Just as the patriots dumped tea to oppose governance shaped by corporate monopoly, we organize today to build what democracy has always promised — a system where We the People, not corporate entities, decide the direction of our democracy.

Every generation has been forced to ask the same question in its own time: who governs — concentrated power, or the people?

As the country approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Move to Amend is launching a new series, Declaration of Independence from Corporate Rule, to explore that question in the present moment.

In the months ahead, we will look at how corporations gained constitutional rights, why so many of today’s crises share a common root, and how constitutional change has historically expanded democracy when existing systems no longer served the public good.

This series is not about looking backward. It is about understanding the work that remains unfinished — and the role each generation plays in carrying democracy forward.

Black History Month is often framed as a time of remembrance — a moment to honor courage, sacrifice, and achievement. But Black history is not only about what has been overcome. It is a warning about how fragile democracy can be, and a reminder that freedom in the United States has only ever expanded when people forced it to.

Affiliate & Advocate Spotlight: Building Power Everywhere

Movements are not built in a single place, nor do they advance through a single tactic. They grow because people, in communities large and small, decide to show up—again and again—and connect what’s happening where they live to a larger structural problem.

Across the country, Move to Amend affiliates are doing exactly that: organizing locally while keeping their eyes on the constitutional crisis at the root of corporate power.

Recent actions in Ohio, Alabama, and Minnesota — now at the center of national attention in the fight to reclaim self-government — reveal what it looks like when communities organize for systemic change.

Corporate lobbying just hit record levels — who is government really working for?

Something important is happening in Washington right now — and most people only see it in fragments.

Banks are increasing lobbying spending. Tech companies are flooding Washington with influence campaigns. Defense contractors and financial firms are expanding their political operations. Lobbying firms themselves are reporting record profits as corporations race to shape policy before it is written.

This isn’t speculation. It’s happening in plain sight

Two hundred and fifty years ago, people had the courage to say enough.

They didn’t politely ask an empire for reform. They didn’t wait for permission. They took direct action against concentrated corporate power and declared independence from a system that extracted wealth while denying self-government. The Boston Tea Party wasn’t just rebellion... it was resistance to corporate rule.

Today, we are living under a new empire.

Our unalienable rights are being stripped away in real time - not by monarchs or wannabe kings, but by corporations empowered through courts. Through judicial fiat, corporations have been granted constitutional rights they were never meant to have. These fabricated rights now serve as armor - shielding corporations from accountability while allowing them to dominate elections, write policy, poison communities, and extract wealth with impunity.

Meanwhile, We the People are told to accept shrinking freedoms.

Voting rights are under attack. Political equality is a myth when money determines whose voices are heard. The promise of democracy is hollow when artificial entities wield more power than living, breathing human beings.

The U.S. Constitution was never a democratic document.

It was written to protect the political and economic power of a narrow ruling class: white male property owners. Enslaved people were excluded. Women were excluded. Indigenous nations were excluded. Poor people were excluded. Democracy, such as it exists at all in the United States, was not a gift from the founders — it was wrestled into existence through centuries of struggle.

The Constitution only began to move toward democracy through amendments: evidence of popular pressure forcing the system to expand who counts as “We the People.”

Each January, we are asked to remember Roe v. Wade not only as a Supreme Court decision, but as a hard-won recognition of women’s sovereignty over their own bodies — a recognition rooted in decades of organizing, risk, and sacrifice by those who refused to accept control by the state, by churches, or by economic elites.

Today, that promise has been systematically dismantled.

 Across the country, we are witnessing coordinated attacks on bodily autonomy, reproductive freedom, access to health care, and the very idea that people — not corporations, politicians, or courts — should have the final say over their own lives. These attacks do not happen in isolation. They are fueled by big-money political systems that elevate corporate interests and ideological power over human rights and community well-being.

At Move to Amend, we understand that struggles for reproductive justice, racial justice, environmental justice, worker rights, and real democracy are deeply connected. They all ask the same fundamental question:

Who decides — the people, or concentrated wealth and power?

But we also know that living in this constant state of political crisis takes a real toll. Many of us feel overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, or discouraged — even as we remain committed to justice.

That’s why we’re inviting you to join us for a new 6-part learning and support series:

 The Way Through: Building Resilient, Sustainable Activists

 A 6-part series from Move to Amend’s Movement Education Program (MEP)