Equality has long been the end goal of historically oppressed

In the enduring saga of a nation’s soul, the words of Ritchie Torres resound like a clarion of truth: “Equality has long been the end goal of historically oppressed populations in the United States.” These words are not spoken as mere observation—they are the echo of centuries of struggle, the lament of the silenced, and the song of those who refused to be broken. Within them burns the eternal pursuit of equality, that sacred fire which has guided humanity through the darkest nights of injustice toward the dawn of freedom. Torres speaks as one who understands that equality is not granted by decree—it is fought for, bled for, and lived for.

From the founding of the republic, the promise of equality has stood both as its greatest ideal and its most haunting contradiction. “All men are created equal,” the Declaration proclaimed, yet millions were enslaved, dispossessed, or excluded from the very freedoms that promise implied. Through the centuries, the oppressed have risen—each generation lifting the torch a little higher, each voice adding to the unending chorus of those who dared to believe that justice is not a dream, but a destiny. Torres, himself a child of the Bronx and a champion for the marginalized, gives voice to that lineage—a reminder that the long march toward equality is not complete, but eternal.

Consider the story of Frederick Douglass, born into bondage yet destined to awaken the conscience of a nation. With no freedom, no name that was his own, he learned to read the sacred words of liberty and turned them against his captors. His speeches thundered across the land, declaring that equality was not a gift of the powerful, but a right written by God upon the hearts of all. When Douglass stood before the crowds and asked, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”, he was not merely condemning hypocrisy—he was calling America to become what it had always claimed to be. In his defiance, we see the very spirit Torres describes: the unyielding will of the oppressed to claim their rightful place in the human story.

But the struggle did not end with emancipation. The centuries unfolded with new chains—segregation, poverty, discrimination, and silence. Each generation met its own form of oppression, and each rose to confront it. The marchers at Selma, beaten and bloodied upon the Edmund Pettus Bridge, walked not just for themselves, but for every soul who had ever been told to “wait” for freedom. Their courage was the living embodiment of Torres’s words—a testament that equality is the ultimate horizon, the goal that lies beyond every wall of hate and every shadow of fear.

And yet, equality is not born from struggle alone—it requires solidarity, the shared recognition that the liberation of one is bound to the liberation of all. The women who fought for suffrage, the laborers who demanded dignity, the LGBTQ+ individuals who rose at Stonewall—all were chapters in the same epic, all driven by the same truth: that human worth cannot be measured by race, gender, wealth, or creed. Torres’s statement reminds us that America’s history is not merely political—it is spiritual. It is the slow, painful awakening of a people learning that freedom without equality is hollow, and progress without justice is an illusion.

In the language of the ancients, equality is not just a right—it is a harmony. It is the balance of creation, the divine law that declares no soul higher or lower than another. When one group is chained, the whole of humanity is less free. When one is lifted, all are elevated. The wise among the elders would say: “Do not seek to rise above your brother—rise with him.” And so it is with nations; their greatness is not measured by their wealth or power, but by how they treat their most vulnerable.

Let this truth, then, be passed down as a sacred teaching. The fight for equality is not the burden of the oppressed alone—it is the duty of all who claim to be human. To honor the struggles of those who came before, we must listen with empathy, act with courage, and speak with conviction when injustice walks among us. Teach your children that equality is not a dream of the past but the promise of the future. Let your voice join the chorus that has never ceased, from the slave’s whisper to the protester’s cry, from the written word to the raised fist.

And so, remember this, O seeker of wisdom: equality is not a destination, but a journey—a sacred pilgrimage of the human spirit. Ritchie Torres reminds us that the oppressed have carried the flame; now it is our turn to keep it burning. Walk humbly, speak boldly, and let your actions proclaim the ancient truth: that all are born equal, and until that equality is made real in every heart and every law, the work of justice is not yet done.