I recently attended my 55th high school reunion. I had lots of conversations about what was going on in 1968 and now.

The contrast is stark.

My generation grew up in the ’60s. It was an exciting time. Change was in the air, and there was optimism and hope.

Our post-senior prom event had us sharing the dance floor — and live Motown music — with our counterparts from Dunbar. It was unforgettable.

The ’60s vision for change included reducing poverty, promoting equal opportunity and racial and gender equality, standing up for environmental protection and expanding voting rights, gay rights and peace. The vision felt right, and there was momentum for bringing it to reality.

In the decade from 1965-75, our nation passed major environmental legislation, the Voting Rights Act and Medicare. We waged the War on Poverty and ended the Vietnam War.

By the late ’70s the wind had started to shift. Post-World War II economic growth and prosperity made it possible for baby boomers to accumulate wealth, and we did. Activism evolved into complacency.

Wealthy and powerful people decided the ’60s agenda was not in their best interest and developed a strategy to push back. They backed Ronald Reagan, and he was elected president in 1980. Those same voters had already begun their campaign to reverse the ’60s trends via a broad inventory of state legislation.

The Club for Growth (1999) with its PAC and super-PAC expanded election influence. The values that emerged in this shift included defense of wealth, income inequality, deregulation of banks and corporations, and the weakening of environmental protections.

Mistakes made in response to 9/11 made war an everyday experience for the next two decades. Peace had no chance. Big-money election influence skyrocketed, weakening our democracy and moving it further toward plutocracy.

These changes happened during the boomers’ prime, on our watch. We weren’t paying enough attention. We didn’t take our responsibility as citizens and stewards of democracy seriously enough. We set the stage for a resurgence of forces we thought were subdued.

There was white supremacy; anti-gay, antisemitic and racially motivated violence; voter suppression; opposition to reproductive rights; environmental exploitation. Now the future our children and grandchildren face is in jeopardy.

Fellow boomers, we are about one-third of the voting population. We have the highest household net worth and the most assets of any other generation. About 40% of us are retired.

In short, we have the numbers, the time and the money to fight back. Our top priority must be to get everyone we know out to vote. Phone calls, email blasts, social media, online tools such as Vote Forward — take your pick. Buy extra coffee and walk the line with union workers that are reenergizing the labor movement. Our money needs to go to causes and candidates that can help get our nation back on track. This is not the time to spend on feel-good charities or bucket list adventures.

Some of us may be hesitant about supporting our most progressive leaders — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, “The Squad,” the Progressive Caucus, EMILY’s List — but they are the ones that have helped keep hope alive. They have sustained much of the vision from the ’60s. They haven’t let it die.

What will the boomer legacy be? Lying down on the job? Coming up short? Or a last hurrah that reinvigorates and saves the ’60s values that inspired our youth?

Time is short. Let’s get cracking.

— Tom Knoche, Westmont, New Jersey

The writer is a 1968 graduate of Milford Mill High School and a retired Baltimore City planner.