All any of us can do is follow our own conscience and retain faith in our democracy
Charles Schulz writes to a 10-year-old boy
In 1970, Charles Schulz, the beloved creator of the Peanuts comic strip, received a letter from a young fan named Joel Lipton. Ten-year-old Joel, along with his classmates, had been given a straightforward yet weighty assignment: each was to reach out to someone they admired and pose a simple question, “What makes a good citizen?”
The following letter, written on this day in 1970, was Schulz’s reply.
Nov. 9, 1970
Dear Joel:
I think it is more difficult these days to define what makes a good citizen than it has ever been before. Certainly all any of us can do is follow our own conscience and retain faith in our democracy. Sometimes it is the very people who cry out the loudest in favor of getting back to what they call “American Virtues” who lack this faith in our country. I believe that our greatest strength lies always in the protection of our smallest minorities.
Sincerely yours,
Charles M. Schulz
Back in 2019, when this letter first surfaced online, Charles Schulz’s widow, Jean, mentioned it at the blog of the Charles Schulz Museum. You can read that post here.
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54 years later and he's not wrong!
Thank you for showing us this marvelous letter Shaun!