Dear friends,
Today we begin with a powerful discussion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s thoughts on how we might find peace within ourselves, in our society, and in the world.
Read Jamelle Bouie on Dr. King’s Christmas sermon from 1967.
The archivist in me could not resist reposting some of my writing from last year on this date. It amused me to see that I had not yet abandoned nonfiction for sci-fi. (I know, I know. . .I read an awful lot of news.)
from the archives:
It is the eve of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, which we are not celebrating, at the behest of King’s family, until Congress passes federal voting rights legislation.
As background to this post, I need to mention that I’ve been reading The 1619 Project on a serious schedule because I thought I was going to teach the curriculum this spring. We’re holding off until the fall, which gives me more time to soak in the ideas. Meanwhile, I hope you will be the beneficiaries of my long steep.
Please note that I have not yet read the whole book, and have not been reading it in order. Also, you will want to read it yourself.
In a chapter called “Progress,” Ibram X. Kendi writes about our tendency to tell the American story as one of inexorable racial progress. Kendi points out that this telling is “ahistorical, mythical, and incomplete.” Instead, history is running on two tracks:
When the long sweep of American history is cast as a constant widening of equity and justice, it overlooks this parallel constant widening of inequity and injustice. The two forces have existed in tandem, dueling throughout our history.
We can’t simply take the average of the two and still tell a true story.
[W]hat is left out of this story is that [the] Second Reconstruction was needed because the First Reconstruction, after the Civil War ended in 1865, failed to bring into being and sustain an equitable nation — an effort undermined by the propaganda of racial progress. What is left out of the story of our time is that a Third Reconstruction is needed because the Second Reconstruction failed to actualize King’s dream, again undermined by the racial progress propaganda.
The duel is on between the voter mobilization that brought triumph in Georgia’s Senate contests just a year ago and the war on voting rights that has been underway since the 2013 Shelby v. Holder decision struck down the most important sections of the Voting Rights Act.
Kendi notes that thinkers like Dinesh D’Souza, in the 1990s, and John McWhorter, following Obama’s election, are among many who have prematurely trumpeted the end of racism as a serious problem. Can anyone believe this in 2022?
In a book review of the last volume of Taylor Branch’s chronicle, “America in the King Years,” David Levering Lewis described King’s speech in March 1965, before the march to Selma:
His sermon was a stem-winder, beginning with an encapsulation of Reconstruction history and ending in a riff of magnificent call and response. “How long will justice be crucified and truth buried?” he asked, and went on to provide the answer: “Not long!” Branch writes, “Already shouts echoed and anticipated his refrain at a driving pace, above cries of encouragement and a low roar of anticipation.” King continued, “How long? Not long! Because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. How long? Not long! Because mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act two months later.
Kendi remarks on MLK’s own frustration that the civil rights victories ran alongside the persistent poverty and police violence that led to the urban rebellions of 1964-67. King knew we could not take an average.
Anthea Butler’s chapter, “Church,” is, thus far, the most revelatory for me. I knew that the emergence of Black Power put church leaders like King in a bind, as frustration grew with the halting progress of the nonviolent movement, but I was unfamiliar with the work of James Cone, a Black theologian and father of Black liberation theology.
Cone’s work, first published the year after King’s assassination, was shaped by the struggle within the Black Church and the movement for civil rights.
Cone’s vision not only recognized the struggles of Black people as the “point of departure” for a new theology but also called to account the manner in which white churches had been instrumental in upholding the structures of racism.”
In addition to being a major influence on Reverend Jeremiah Wright, whose “incendiary language” Obama disavowed in order to win the 2008 primary, Cone was Raphael Warnock’s teacher at Union Theological Seminary.
Butler sees Senator Warnock as
a bridge between the Black church, past, present, and future, and political action.
Warnock has spoken powerfully about the failure to protect voting rights. In a recent conversation on PBS News Hour, Warnock reminded the interviewer that he is not just a senator, but
somebody who preaches the Gospel every Sunday morning.
And regardless of where we are in this moment, I'm going to keep preaching the gospel of democracy, because I actually believe that democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea, this idea that all of us have dignity, and so we ought to have a voice in the process.
[W]hat we're dealing with in this moment is an effort to forestall the ability of some people to be at the table. Those of us who are in the Senate, we didn't just appear here. We were sent here by the people.
And we have to keep fighting the good fight. This is a moral moment. This is what Dr. King meant when he talked about the fierce urgency of now.
today:
Spindell was also one of the fake electors in Wisconsin working to overturn the 2020 election results.
If you’re on Twitter, please like and repost this tweet to amplify the call to rescind Spindell’s appointment.
It doesn’t look like we will be celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday anytime soon, except by protest. We have to demand voting rights protections.
Write to your Congressional representative and ask what they are doing to defend voting rights. I made it easy.
Since I am just one organizer, working from New York, I want to encourage wiffijistas from other states to work on behalf of voting rights legislation in their states. To facilitate this work, here’s a great tool:
Check out the Comprehensive Bill Search tool from Voting Rights Lab!
In addition, I offer my services. If you want assistance to create an action to help pass voting rights legislation in your state, I am here for you. Just reply to any of my posts and let me know how I can help.
If you need more education on the issues in your state, use the Issue Areas tool from Voting Rights Lab.
I love Warnock’s idea that democracy is the political manifestation of human dignity. We will be watching the progress of the case against Trump in Georgia, hopeful that he will be held to account for his assault on the rights of voters in that state.
We are still troubled by the persistence of poverty and hunger, fundamental affronts to human dignity. For this reason, I need to follow up on a pressing local issue.
Adams claims that staffing levels will not adversely affect public services, but they are already doing so. While it’s true that HRA is still processing SNAP applications, the failure to turn them around in a timely fashion harms those folks who need immediate help.
A leader of a coalition of nonprofit agencies in New York City pointed out:
“[HRA] will issue the benefits retroactively to the date that the person was eligible. But you can't eat retroactively.”
Tell the Mayor that he needs to staff agencies adequately to provide needed services.
In Jamelle Bouie’s piece, at the top of this post, he highlighted a line from King’s Christmas sermon that lays out the challenge and the promise before us:
We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.
This weekend, in a speech about Dr. King’s words and work, Reverend William Barber remarked
with love,
L