Tearing Down More Than Statues

For the last several weeks, we as a country have collectively been engaged in a needed, righteous argument over why Confederate statues must go. At my organization, National Action Network (NAN), we clearly all agree that they should be removed, and have been on top of this issue for the past several years, including calling for the removal of streets named after Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn. This upcoming Monday, on the 54th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington ― a march that was addressed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. making his epic “I Have A Dream” speech and supported by folks like the late great Dick Gregory ― we will once again gather in the nation’s capital. We are not convening for nostalgia’s sake, but rather for the fierce urgency of now.

Led by 1,000 ministers, imams and rabbis, the march for justice will raise awareness of the fact that Dr. King’s dream and objectives are under direct threat today by the Trump administration. This current administration has attacked voting rights, health care, criminal justice and police reform, and given comfort to neo-Nazis, homophobes and racists. It is vital that moral leaders of the nation stand up today like the moral leaders of Dr. King and Dick Gregory’s generation did years ago to raise society to a higher level of justice, fairness and inclusion.

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