Martin Luther King Jr. Day arrives this year amid a deliberate effort to rewrite American history and a wholesale assault on civil rights in America. It has been one year since Donald Trump was inaugurated on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It felt cruel and grotesque that a man who represents so much of what Dr. King stood against could rise to power on a day meant to honor the struggle for racial justice and democracy. Over the last year, we have seen a devastating, sustained attack on nearly every facet of the civil rights architecture in America. We have seen the gutting of civil rights enforcement; high-profile purges of Black federal employees and a drive to functionally resegregate the federal workforce; the rewriting of history in official documents and even in Smithsonian museums; and vicious attacks on Black refugees from Haiti, Somalia, and other African countries. As I write this email, we are awaiting a Supreme Court decision that could potentially gut the final remaining provisions of the Voting Rights Act -- part of an overarching campaign to suppress Black voters and Black political power across the country. It is important to name what we are facing. This is a dedicated, organized campaign to eradicate civil rights, erase history, and enshrine white supremacy as a central governing principle. While the scale and speed of the onslaught are immense, the project itself is not new. Today’s MAGA movement is the modern heir to the racial authoritarian regime that has shaped American governance since the nation’s founding. When we look for inspiration and lessons, we often turn to struggles for democracy abroad. But the truth is that the United States has been engaged in an unfinished fight for democracy for most of its history. In a very real sense, this country did not begin to function as a democracy until civil rights organizers created the conditions for the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That is why the first, and most important, lessons for today’s fight for democracy come from the civil rights movement here at home. In fact, many of the international movements we cite for inspiration trace their own lineage back to Dr. King and the Birmingham Bus Boycott, the Freedom Riders, and the Selma march. From successful economic campaigns like the Birmingham Bus Boycott, to the disciplined use of nonviolence, to the strategic leveraging of repression so that state violence backfired, to mass mobilization and noncooperation -- so many of the tactics and strategies we talk about today were forged by leaders like Dr. King, John Lewis, Ella Baker, Diane Nash, and countless unnamed organizers who refused to accept injustice as inevitable. The fight for racial justice in America has always been the fight for democracy in America; it’s crucial that we recognize them as inseparable. And as we honor Dr. King and his legacy, we do so not by sanitizing or reducing it, but by recognizing the fullness of his vision -- for racial justice, economic justice, and ending war and imperialism. So on this MLK Day, we ask you to do more than post a quote or take the day off. We ask you to learn and reflect on the legacy of Dr. King and the civil rights movement, and to recommit to the fight for a just, inclusive, and equitable democracy. We ask you to support organizations leading the fight today, such as our friends at the Transformative Justice Coalition and Black Voters Matter Fund, who are each organizing to protect and advance Black political power and voting rights in this crucial moment. And we ask you to commit to sustained, collective action in the months and years ahead. The arc of the moral universe does not bend on its own. It bends because people organize, resist, and refuse to comply with injustice -- again and again, even when the path is hard. Honoring Dr. King today means continuing that work. In solidarity,  |
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