Let’s Channel the Radical Dr. King
We celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday…it’s the weekend and some have already forgotten. I’m not surprised as this year felt like so many others: the same social media posts with the same milquetoast quotes; my eyes have started to glaze over at the farce of it all.
For one day, we’ve decided to collectively laud the version of Dr. King society deems “acceptable”—the peaceful man who died due to a dream of being more than the color of his skin; but for the rest of the year, we choose to forget that Dr. King didn’t just want different races to be able to eat in public together, he also wanted everyone to be able to pay for the food.
Looking around Anderson County, Dr. King’s Dream has undeniably been deferred. If achieved, there would not have been people in Anderson County for ACDP’s Democrats Care team to feed this week (shoutout to Ms. Eleanor Walters for coordinating!); but a dream deferred for 55 years does not have to be a dream defeated.
To achieve Dr. King’s dream, we must commit to service beyond an arbitrary day off in January. We must stop deifying him as some mythical figure of a bygone era, but instead we must channel our own inner-MLKs as we get to work changing an unjust system today…and every day that follows.
This year, my work will be putting action behind Dr. King’s words as Lucy and I step into our new roles leading the Anderson County Democrats. Following Dr. King’s footsteps, we commit to:
Recruiting a diverse coalition reflective of all of Anderson County
Building an organization that is greater than any one individual
Getting in good trouble in pursuit of a truly more perfect union
Because as we speak, extreme South Carolina Republicans are seeking to create an unjust, two-tiered educational system. By defunding our public schools with a tax break for wealthy families with kids already in private schools, the future of the most vulnerable among us—our youth— is at stake. What is going on in the SC Legislature is an injustice MLK would agree must be fought…and that work didn’t end on Monday.
We can’t do it alone, however, and need your help for ACDP to continue building in 2023. To protect SC public schools, take action today by looking at our January ‘23 Education Protection Action Items, join our mailing list to be kept up to date with future initiatives, and set up some time to chat with me personally to get even more plugged in.
In Service,
Chris Salley
Chairman, Anderson County Democratic Party
By Yoichi R. Okamoto, White House Press Office (WHPO) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and racism. The problems of racial injustice and economic injustice cannot be solved without a radical redistribution of political and economic power”
—King to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) board on March 30, 1967.
