Their struggle for the freedom and equality promised in the Declaration of Independence “embody the American spirit of resilience in the face of oppression.”

Maybe Demarris should have seen it coming.The 11 -year-old LINC student knew that he and his King Elementary classmates were special invitees because they were in an after-school coding program. He knew the bus had delivered them to an engineering firm — Burns & McDonnell. He saw that the featured speaker getting ready to meet them was wearing her blue NASA-like jumpsuit.But it wasn’t until one of the dramatic slides on the big screen showed the selfie — the woman in blue, smiling with her hair afloat, and a giant, shimmering earth curving behind her — that he realized what was happening.

They were two days away from launching the 2026 legislative session when a half dozen Missouri lawmakers huddled with LINC leadership to survey the challenging landscape ahead.