As I spend time with Theodore Roosevelt in Bret Baier’s new book, To Rescue The American Spirit and the Birth of a Superpower, I find myself thinking again about the greatness of men and women.
In our American story, individuals step forward whose loyalty, discipline, and vision become the architecture of change.
I have lived long enough and read my way to recognizing a pattern. I am fascinated with past American leaders who were shaped by brilliant educations, the high expectations set upon them, and the sense that privilege required service.
They were not perfect, but they understood duty, and they carried a moral seriousness that anchored their decisions. They helped form the world I have known.
Reading about Teddy Roosevelt has reminded me that leadership begins as character, as preparation, as the discipline of men and women who believe they are responsible for more than their own advancement.
History tends to remember the victories, but what stays with me is the measure of the individuals themselves, the clarity of purpose that allowed them to step forward and change history.
Here in Rocky Mount, our challenges are not those of global conflict or national crisis, but life looms large to the people who live and work here paying the price for self-serving leadership.
In recent days, the response to how Rocky Mount chooses its leaders has been encouraging on social media sites, like Concerned Citizens. It tells me something important; people are not only frustrated, they are recognizing that the way we elect leadership shapes the future we are able to build.
This recognition is a reflection of something deeper: is Rocky Mount finally ready to demand an end to corruption from those entrusted with its future?
The American leaders I have read about and have come to deeply admire did not measure their decisions for applause or advantage, and certainly not for financial gain.
They brought to their moment the full weight of who they were, their character, their determination, and their belief in American ideals, and by doing so they did not simply manage events, they changed the very eras in which they lived
This is what feels absent today, the moral clarity that guides a city toward something better than the familiar patterns of disappointment, self-serving shenanigans, and a rigged system.
When ordinary citizens refuse to accept the limits placed on them, and when a community remembers that character matters as much as policy, the idea of changing the way we vote from a Ward based to a City-Wide vote is appealing.
The measure of leadership has never been perfection, that is not the issue facing Rocky Mount. What is at stake is whether the future this community is trying to build can move forward when leadership serves narrow interests rather than the common good, and whether citizens are willing to reconsider how that leadership is chosen.
This is where we find ourselves now. Still waiting for audit answers followed by action. If citizens continue to respond favorably to a proposed change in how we vote, the answer to what confounds us will change our future.
Main Street Rocky Mount 