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This is not a normal Martin Luther King Jr. Day. People are not ruminating on familiar quotes or revisiting speeches as historical artifacts. They are marching. They are filling streets. They are showing up because something fundamental feels broken.
A few days ago, I attended a hearing at the Minnesota Senate building. Twenty-eight members of Congress were present. That alone signaled the gravity of the moment. What is happening in Minnesota is no longer local, and it can no longer be ignored. Minnesota has become, in a heartbreaking way, the heartbeat of the nation.
What was described at that hearing was stark. Federal agents moving through neighborhoods and public spaces. Doors broken down without proper warrants. People stopped because of how they look or because of their accents. Families unable to locate loved ones. Attorneys unable to find their clients. Citizens detained and released hours later without charges or explanation, as described in testimony.
This is chaos imposed on people’s lives. Trying to make sense of it is painful because it should never be necessary in a society governed by law.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. did not wait for permission. He did not wait for things to calm down. He acted when the law stopped protecting people and started threatening them. Selma did not happen because people were calm. It happened because the law had failed and people refused to cooperate with its abuse. Rosa Parks did not sit because she was tired. She sat because obedience had become immoral.
That is the moment we are in.
