Letters to the Editor: Small acts of kindness remind us of what binds Americans
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- A 30-day bike journey from Seattle to Washington reveals an America defined less by partisan divides than by everyday generosity in towns often written off as forgotten.
- Riding as part of the United States of Kindness movement, cyclists document small acts — shared dinners, open doors, refilled water bottles — that surfaced once they started actively looking for them.
- These moments of kindness do not erase poverty or political conflict, but together they suggest a quieter force still holding the country’s disparate communities in fragile solidarity.
To the editor: Maybe America isn’t falling apart. Maybe we’re just looking at it from too far away.
That thought became apparent after reading LZ Granderson’s account of traveling across the country (“My road trip revealed the good and the bad that hold America together,” Aug. 21). This summer, I spent 30 days pedaling from Seattle to Washington as part of the United States of Kindness, a movement encouraging Americans to do and document acts of kindness. I recognized the America Granderson encountered, including poverty, political divisions and places that feel forgotten. But my experience left me thinking less about what divides America and more about what holds it together.
In every interaction, we glimpsed the communities we passed through and the pockets of hope scattered across America. Once we started looking for kindness, it seemed to be everywhere. Dinner with strangers. Invitations into people’s homes. A passerby making sure we had enough water.
Individually, these moments won’t fix America’s problems. Together, they remind us what can.
Augusta Halle, Charlottesville, Va.
