“Do you think you are doing enough?” asks Ithaca’s former mayor, Svante Myrick ’09, to those who feel that the country is “in crisis.”
Myrick returned to the city to present his new action kit, The Art of Saving Democracy: An Action Kit for Making Change at the Ithaca is Books festival, joining New York State Assemblymember Anna Kelles (D-125th District) in a discussion titled, “The Art of Saving Democracy,” at Buffalo Street Books on Sept. 10.
The Art of Saving Democracy, released in June 2026 and now a USA Today Bestseller, is a tool for people “ready to move from worry to action,” Myrick said. The kit features artwork, tools and sources of inspiration for citizens who want to make political change.
In an interview with The Sun, Myrick reminisced on his time in city government, discussed the importance of art in activism and introduced his action kit.
Myrick as Mayor
In 2007, Myrick, then a junior at Cornell and a member of The Sun’s editorial board, joined the Ithaca Common Council.
Myrick said he was motivated to run because “standing around and saying what other people ought to do is not quite the same as doing something myself.”
In 2012, he was elected as the youngest and first mayor of color in the history of New York state at just 24 years old.
During his time as mayor, Myrick was known for inheriting a 3.5 million dollar budget deficit and closing it in his first two years of leadership. He was also responsible for proposing the first heroin injection centers in the country.
Myrick held the office for 10 years until 2022, when he resigned to serve as the executive director and later the president of People For the American Way, a political advocacy organization based in Washington D.C. that fights for fair courts, protects voter rights and opposes far-right extremism.
Art as Activism
“The best way to change political outcomes is to change the stories that people are seeing,” Myrick told The Sun.
Myrick said this change needs to come from the people, whether they see themselves as protestors or artists. In Myrick’s view, there has never been a successful social movement without art.
Art has been the impetus for social change, he said, pointing to the "Hope” poster for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and the “Make America Great Again” slogan for Trump’s campaign.
“[These pieces] communicate a lot in a very little amount of space and help galvanize a movement,” Myrick said.
Art can also be another outlet for those who are frustrated with a lack of outcomes from protest. Myrick’s advice is, “don’t get disenchanted, but find new methods and avenues to have influence.”
The action kit he developed is designed to help people create these new ways of making change, Myrick said. The kit is made for those who wish to channel creative pursuits into social change.
“If we’re going to succeed [in saving our democracy], we have to get more and more people into our democratic practice,” Myrick said.
The Art of Saving Democracy
With a foreword written by Golden Globe winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis and works from artists such as Shepard Fairey, Roy Lichtenstein and Carrie Mae Weems, the action kit features “25 examples of political pieces that have altered the social movements,” Myrick explained.
Myrick developed the kit through People for the American Way with Chief Creative Director Na Eng. It includes physical materials such as postcards, posters and conversation starters.
Myrick chose to include these materials because he believes “the future of these [social] movements is going to blend back and forth from online to digital.”
People For the American Way has “worked with hundreds of artists over 45 years,” according to Myrick. He said he hopes people will appreciate and share what he called “world masterpieces” in the accessible forms included.
The goal of the kit is to “guide people and motivate people to use their talents towards saving our country.”
“Everyone has to do something,” Myrick said. “Just watching the news is not enough. You gotta take at least some small action to shape the news.”
Lila Davis is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She is a staff writer for the news department and can be reached at ldavis@cornellsun.com.
