In 1970, when 10-year-old Joel Lin­ton asked Charles Schulz, the cre­ator of Peanuts, “What do you think makes a good cit­i­zen?” Schulz sent the young­ster a short but pithy reply: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. SchulzWhen this let­ter sur­faced in 2019, Schulz’s wid­ow com­ment­ed, “I con­tin­u­al­ly find com­ic strips that could have been writ­ten for today’s audi­ence.” “This says what needs to be said now.” Need­less to say, the same mes­sage bears repeat­ing in 2024.via Kot­tkeRelat­ed Con­tent23 Min­utes of Charles Schulz Draw­ing PeanutsUmber­to Eco Explains the Poet­ic Pow­er of Charles Schulz’s PeanutsHow Franklin Became Peanuts’ First Black Char­ac­ter, Thanks to a Car­ing School­teacher (1968)