Let us not speak of reconciliation without speaking of reparations and restoration, or how we can repair the breach and how we can restore the loss. READ MORE

On August 28, 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech about a dream that inspired a generation. Nearly sixty years later, the dream lives on. This poetic and provocative short film has been created to inspire communities across the country to ask the question: how far have we come on the journey to social justice and what must be done to achieve the dream King so eloquently articulated in 1963?

Here’s Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech in its entirety – click here

Here are some of his most inspiring and challenging quotes: READ MORE

I have been filled with a divine rage since armed insurrectionists, instigated by the president, violently sieged our Capitol last week. There must be accountability. In one move toward that, 10 Republicans joined all 222 House Democrats in voting that President Donald Trump incited an insurrection. He is now the only U.S. president to be impeached twice. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and the nine other Republicans who joined her described their vote to impeach as a vote of “conscience.” Invoking that word made me think of Martin Luther King Jr.’s wisdom:

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right. READ MORE

by Firmin DeBrabander

Professor of philosophy at the Maryland Institute College of Art

January 11, 2021

Much of the blame for last week’s horrific assault on the Capitol lies with the president and his allies; that much is clear. But another force in society has done more than its part, inculcating insurrectionist fantasies in the American mind for decades: the gun-rights movement.

Since the 1990s, the idea that Americans would need to band together and violently overthrow the government has been the key to establishing and expanding the market for guns. It has also been used to justify citizens’ right to march around in public with assault rifles slung casually over a shoulder or hoisted high at angry protests. The argument for self-defense only goes so far, you see. If people want a gun to defend themselves and their family, then handguns will do—and preferably small ones, which you can easily store or conceal, so as not to invite aggression. And a self-defense argument largely limits guns to the household; that’s where you would be most intent on protecting your family, after all. This was not good enough for gun manufacturers eager to sell absurdly powerful firearms, such as semiautomatic rifles, which are properly at home on the battlefield. READ MORE

Derek Black was raised in a family dedicated to white supremacy. His father was founder of a notorious white nationalist website, and his godfather was the infamous David Duke. Black spread his own racist beliefs, and coined the term "white genocide," as host of a popular radio program. But once in college, Black was confronted by his friends about his bigoted beliefs. They gradually worked a transformation, and Black eventually renounced his views. In the video below he discusses with Anderson Cooper about hate groups and the armed threats at all 50 state capitols and in Washington, DC.

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