Inspiration from Dr. King
It’s a beautiful winter’s day here on campus. Yesterday’s snowfall has blanketed the campus, and Kari, Lola, and I heard the joyful shouts of sled riders heading down Foss Hill when we took our late morning walk.
Today is MLK day, and the holiday has particular resonance for many of us this year. This morning I listened to an interview with Len Edwards ’63, who recounted meeting Dr. King on campus and being inspired to join Wesleyan students and faculty (and thousands of others) in the efforts to register voters during the summer of 1964. Freedom Summer was hard, dangerous work. Len talks of being arrested five times and of his colleagues who were murdered for daring to encourage black people to vote. He said he “was scared all the time, but I didn’t give up.” “We made a difference,” he concludes.
Recent ICE attacks on Minnesota make this a sober holiday, indeed. The point-blank shooting of Renee Good, and the systematic terrorizing of protesters in the streets of Minneapolis, can remind us of the struggles for civil rights during Dr. King’s time. We know plenty of people who are scared all the time, plenty of people, though, who refuse to give up. The march toward authoritarianism is only successful if we get out of its way. Dr. King didn’t get out of the way, and he has inspired millions to struggle for a more just and democratic world.
Throughout the coming year Americans will ask ourselves how we will obstruct authoritarianism, how we will constructively participate in the struggle for a more just and democratic society. Some will take a traditional conservative approach and work to strengthen the checks and balances that have preserved spaces of freedom in civil society. Others will take a libertarian approach, emphasizing the need to call out and resist the abuse of individual rights by a prerogative state run according to the whims of a president who sees himself as unlimited in his power. Still others will take a progressive stance and emphasize the need to protect the vulnerable by pushing back against the kleptocracy that continues to reward the richest at the expense of the many.
Whatever approach we take, we can be inspired by Dr. King and by people like Len Edwards who risked their lives to fight for more freedom and more democracy. We can remember, as Joan Baez said, that “action is the antidote to despair,” and find ways in the year to come to practice democracy and exercise freedom.
