Remembering MLK in the Trump Era

We are watching, in real time, a federal government try to erase the very lessons Martin Luther King Jr. gave this country. The Trump administration is actively minimizing Black Americans, demonizing immigrants, and stripping civil liberties from non-white communities, separating families, and treating entire groups of people as disposable. That’s cruelty, backed by white supremacy dressed up as “law and order.”

MLK didn’t fight so America could pretend racism was over. He fought because America was (and still is) deeply unequal. He spoke out against police brutality, mass incarceration, economic exploitation, and the dehumanization of people based on race and nationality.

And let’s be clear about something history books love to sanitize: while MLK personally believed in nonviolent protest, the movement did not survive on his moral appeals alone. There were organized armed groups, like the Deacons for Defense, who protected Black communities and civil rights workers when the state participated in the violence.

Rights are not granted out of kindness, they are acquired from the very people who want to take them away.

Trump’s attempts to remove MLK’s legacy from schools, public spaces, and our collective national memory should terrify all of us. King believed democracy required pressure, disruption, and collective action. Civil disobedience wasn’t optional, it was necessary. If we want any hope of preserving democracy in this country, we have to stop letting authoritarianism hide behind fake patriotism, fake Christianity and white nationalism.

Honoring MLK means standing against racism, resisting injustice, and refusing to be silent while our freedoms are under attack.

Democracy itself is under attack. What matters next is what you are going to do about it. Are you going to make the sacrifices necessary to stop injustice? Or are you going to simply comply because it’s the easiest thing to do?