I believe we are living in an extraordinary moment right now. Fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, the country is about to take another major step toward rectifying racial injustice, this time shifting attitudes as much as laws. A new generation of more tolerant Americans is quickly reaching critical mass. The movement may shift the country to the left, but the sentiment that demands a more just society supersedes the narrow confines of party allegiances. 

Yesterday, Utah Senator Mitt Romney joined protesters in Washington, declaring that Black Lives Matter. He marched with a group of evangelical Christians and supported a movement that would have been portrayed as left-wing not long ago. Romney, I suspect, is leading Republicans, not rejecting them. In the fight for the soul of the GOP, Romney is laying out values that directly conflict with those of the populists who control the party right now. 

The arc of the universe is bending a little more toward justice right now. After years of converting police into paramilitary units and giving law enforcement officers the benefit of the doubt for deaths and injuries that came about because of excessive use of force, sympathy has shifted to the victims who were too often innocent and unarmed. The role of systemic racism in abuse of police power has been laid bare. Not only are protesters demanding change, law enforcement agencies are, too. 

The last time we saw significant progress on civil rights, the country dismantled Jim Crow, ending apartheid in the South and barring legal discrimination. We ensured the right to vote for all Americans with Voting Rights Act of 1965, giving African Americans a full voice at the ballot box. The laws made discrimination illegal but they could not end racism. Attitudes and perceptions that existed then are still prevalent in too many places today. 

The shift we are witnessing today has more to do with changing those attitudes and perceptions. The forces that allow rogue cops to get a pass are rooted in a generation of leaders who do not share the values of our emerging majority. The same forces that saw attitudes toward the LGBT community change so fast are at work now on racism. Young people who have grown up in a more multicultural society will not accept racist reactions by people in authority. 

In my lifetime, I have seen the first female, African American, and gay television characters in leading roles. My children have been watching whole casts of them their entire lives. My first grade class was very aware that we were the first integrated class to go through twelve grades and graduate together. My children can’t conceive of having separate schools segregated by race. They are appalled at the idea that people of color could be subject to different treatment when it comes to law enforcement. 

While racism, both subtle and overt, was tolerated or ignored too often by people of my generation, it won’t be condoned by the new generation of leaders emerging today. That generation is forcing my peers and those older than me to reevaluate their attitudes and recognize our failings as a society and our obligation to correct those wrongs. That change is happening fast and the events unfolding now define a seminal moment in our country’s history.