Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. set the nation aglow with his dream for America’s future. It is up to us to finish the work he began and spread the light of his dream.
It is more important than ever before that we engage and participate in our democracy in a time when national figures are seeking to eclipse this light with hatred and division.
On this day, 50 years ago, the nation came to a standstill as news spread that King had been assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
Although a bullet struck King’s body on that fateful day in 1968, it could not scathe his spirit and his indelible message.
We must cherish and share the light King delivered to us then, and use it to illuminate the road we are traveling upon now — especially when dark clouds close in around us.
King’s was a message of love, a message that brought us light amid some of America’s darkest chapters. In the words of King:
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
His courageous leadership helped bring America out of a “night already devoid of stars,” and into a morning glistening with hope.
As American history can attest, the road to equality and tolerance is not an easy one.
It is a road upon which many a “wall” has been erected for the express purpose of impeding our way forward.
Fortunately, King taught us how to walk across bridges so that we could tear down all such walls built out of rotting, decrepit bigotry.
Today, America finds itself in uncertain times — times that remind us the dream that King envisioned for this nation has made progress but has not yet been fully realized.
The systemic prejudice engineered into the nation’s criminal justice system persists, voter suppression tactics against minority communities are once again in play, and we’ve witnessed the rise of movements conceived in a bigotry that has incited everything from birtherism to tiki torch terrorists to xenophobic public policy proposals.
The divisive rhetoric, racist dog whistles, and poor excuse for leadership filling up the swamp in Washington may make these times feel dark and dreary — especially for America’s rich mosaic of immigrant communities.
However, King continues to light our way ahead into a brighter, fairer, more loving tomorrow.
Even the darkest of storm clouds must eventually give way to blue skies.
King is our “lighthouse,” our beacon, to guide us through trying “storms” like the ones we are now being buffeted by.
But to weather these storms we must follow the example he laid out for us.
We must be active participants in our democracy.
We need to be vocal about the change we want, and we must never take for granted our right to vote.
Since the Supreme Court’s 2013 nullification of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act — an iconic legislative milestone of the Civil Rights movement — some states have interpreted this as an open invitation to undo the work that King and his movement fought so hard to achieve.
In 2016, a federal appeals court struck down North Carolina’s efforts to implement a series of new voting measures aimed at keeping African-Americans away from the polls.
The court found that North Carolina state officials had intended to target and suppress African-American voter turnout in the state with “almost surgical precision.”
From the early days of the Reconstruction South, to Selma’s Bloody Sunday nearly a century later, countless African-Americans were brutalized, terrorized and even murdered as they fought to be treated as equal citizens and exercise a right the Constitution had promised them — the right to vote.
If not out of a personal sense of civic responsibility, then we at least owe it to King and the courageous Americans of the Civil Rights era to participate in our democracy to the fullest extent possible.
Without them, voting — among many other rights — may well not have become a right that all Americans are allowed to partake in.
Voting is more than just a civic act. It is also a way for us to show solidarity with the Americans who toiled and sacrificed so that we can all have a say in our democracy — no matter
what our gender or color of our skin.
Our participation in democracy is a key way we can carry on the light that King shined upon America.
To honor and continue the legacy of King, be active, be brave, and get out and vote so that America’s light can shine for generations to come.
