“We’ve got to give ourselves to this struggle until the end,” said Dr. Martin Luther King, the day before he was assassinated. That “we” includes all of us. Black, Brown and White; gay, straight, trans, and bi; native and immigrant; Christian, Jew and Muslim; disabled and able bodied; young and old; Republican and Democrat.
This struggle is not a struggle to be placed upon the shoulders of Black people. No. In fact, the foundations that foment this struggle were laid by White people. The foundations were then institutionalized by White people. So too shall it be ended, in concert with White people, and all the others who make our nation whole and beautiful.
I do not say this as a judgment of White people. I say it to speak the truth. Without truth we have no foundation. With truth we will stand side-by-side, with our American sisters and brothers, wrapped in “an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”
As we remember and honor Dr. King, “We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience.”