That Dull Pain We Are Feeling Today Is Our Conscience--



That Dull Pain We Are Feeling Today Is Our Conscience--

He risked everything to bring to his people those freedoms which they had been denied, and to help white America to redeem itself. He even strove to redeem Christianity, which had been hijacked by white men wearing collars during the daytime and then white hoods at night. He went to jail, had his house firebombed, was repeatedly assaulted and his family threatened. And of course he was murdered. That was his reward for preaching the gospel and wanting the Constitution of the US applied equally. Because, after all, he was an actual Christian, a human being who both sinned and atoned. 

What would he say about us today, we who allowed the forces of States Rights, nullification, discrimination and the armed "midnight riders" to return to power, with 71 million Americans voting into the Presidency a modern Jefferson Davis, leading the Party of the "new Jim Crow?"

Yes, by all means, honor his memory today with service and good works. But let the ripples of anger and disappointment radiating from history, from the souls of all those who took part in the struggle back then sink in. That pain and remembrance is our conscience at work, demanding we undo the catastrophe of our recent moral and political devolution, which has unfolded in the years since his untimely death. 

MAGA is the new Ku Klux Klan. The media and Democratic leadership won't say that, and neither will President Biden. I do, because I know I have nothing to lose by saying it. Once we admit this uncomfortable truth, we can take a walk in the giant shoes of Martin Luther King Jr., for at least a few precious first steps. 

(Pencil sketch from 1991-LFR)

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