In the national election, ending in Georgia on January 5th, we saw the hard won fruit of many years of work.
The next day, in the Capitol Building, a white nationalist race-riot encouraged by the President tried and failed to use violence to annul the results of this election.
What lessons can we learn?
Of the two, I believe the national election was by far the more important event.
Elections matter. Offering solutions to sharedproblems matters. Black voices matter, and Black lives matter. But all of these also can be ignored, silenced, orannulled.
As we celebrate Dr. King in January, we remember that in the 1960s people lost their lives in the effort to register Black voters in the South. Their actionssecured passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. We also can remember that this landmark legislation was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.
Beloved Community in the Civil Rights Movement always required both the courage to stand up for justice, and the courage to offer forgiveness and loving kindness to violent opponents.
Even the white nationalists who rioted on January 6th.
In the spirit of our Covenant for Beloved Community, we have an opportunity to learn more nextSaturday, January 16th, at the 23rd annual celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Day. Sponsored by the Whatcom Human Rights Task Force, the theme is, “Recapturing the Revolutionary Spirit: Dangerous Unselfishness.”
For details, and to register for this on-line event, go to www.whrtf.org
