Dr. King’s day is coming up. In years past, I would post quotes of Dr. King, but I’m no longer interested in his legacy delivered in bite-sized pieces. As one of the great orators of our time, he is full of safe, accessible quotes.

No Dr. King quote could capture his work with sanitation workers demanding simple human dignity, his call to faith from the Birmingham Jail, or his call to action from everything he did.

No quote of his could convey the reality that while we’ve given him a federal holiday, we’re still fighting for equal access to the ballot box.

He was the martyr that gave Congress the shocked motivation to pass the Civil Rights act. 58 years later, Congressional Democrats hope his memory can push voting protections through the filibuster. We’re still fighting for equal access.

Today, we lost Clyde Bellecourt, the Thunder Before the Storm. He was one of the greats. A co-founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and organizer of the Wounded Knee occupation, he founded AIM in 1968 in Minneapolis to address police violence against Native Americans. AIM spans the US and Canada and has made great strides, yet 54 years later, the Minneapolis Police Department is the poster child for violence against minorities. We’re still fighting police violence.

You are going to see a lot of memes this weekend. The memes will show Dr. King or Clyde Bellecourt either in a heroic pose in front of a crowd or a pensive pose in soft lighting. It’s safer that way, they can be presented as the scholars speaking wisdom from the past, rather than the leaders of fights that are still very much with us today.

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