COVER STORY This issue: Conscience of a Nation. The 1963 March on Washington is best known for Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, but the address that John Lewis delivered on that day—as well as the one he did not deliver—would also go down in history. It loomed large in the biography of the future Congressman. When Lewis spoke to TIME in 2013 for the 50th anniversary of the March, he said he vividly remembered being introduced to hundreds of thousands of people who had gathered, eager to hear from a 23-year-old who was quickly taking a leadership role in the civil rights movement.—JOSIAH BATES…To understand the world we live in, read TIME.

Security Law brings a chill to Hong Kong. For months, the mosaics of sticky notes, posters and artwork that dotted Hong Kong told a story of resistance. Pro-democracy protesters and supporters affixed messages of hope, solidarity and demands for greater political freedom to so-called Lennon Walls as protests rocked the city in 2019. But after June 30, when Beijing passed Hong Kong’s national-security law, the walls came down. Books written by pro-democracy leaders like Joshua Wong disappeared from public libraries. Activists deleted social-media accounts. Demosisto, Wong’s political party, disbanded…

The Kids are not alright. Children are paying a mental-health price as the pandemic grinds on. Pandemic can be indiscriminate, with viruses making no distinctions among the victims they attack and those they spare. If you’re human, you’ll do. COVID-19 has been different, particularly when it comes to age. The disease has shown a special animus for older people, with those 65-plus considered at especially high risk for hospitalization and death, and those 18 and below catching a semblance of an epidemiological break. Though a small share of adolescents have suffered severe cases, most who contract the disease in that age cohort are likelier to experience milder symptoms or none at all…