retreat

On a spring morning in 2002, the Sierra Club’s leaders gathered at the historic Ralston White Retreat, tucked between towering redwood trees on the side of Mount Tamalpais, high above the San Francisco Bay.

Later that summer he led a discussion about population and the border at a board retreat in Michigan, and at the next board meeting, according to the minutes, he continued to press the issue, saying that “immigration drives us to higher fertility.”

Despite being hugely outnumbered, the men held their position for three days, giving their comrades enough time to retreat and successfully defend the city.

Both men were killed in January 1951 as they were forced to retreat by a wave of Chinese soldiers.

In our modern era, when democracy is not just a system of laws or a set of elections but a life practice of people who work together with others to set a collective destiny, it’s crucial that we hold fast to that because the alternative is to retreat, as you noted, into solitude.