Martin Luther King Day 2026 is different from others during my lifetime. We are at a crossroads when it is becoming clear once again that the United States have always been held together by a slender thread. From the very beginning there have been different worldviews and values. We experienced a civil war that began and ended less than two centuries ago. Yet its end did not mean the end of the deep divisions over the full human dignity of all. A little over a century after the end of the Civil War, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated because of his efforts for equality.
Here we are, a bit more than half a century later, and we seem on the verge of requiring that future posts of the sort I am writing refer to US Civil War I.
The arc of the universe may bend towards justice, but it certainly does not do so in a steady and straight line.
Precisely because of the slow but real progress evidenced by the election of people to high office who would never have done so a century ago, the racists, misogynists, antisemites, Islamophobes, and homophobes are offering a backlash.
Progress towards equality has always involved a process like this. It is important to emphasize that, because those of us who are living through this particular moment can feel like these are unprecedented times.
Our historical moment has distinctive aspects, as all do, but it is not unprecedented.
The fact that a white Christian woman could be shot for failing to be cowed in fear before a white man claiming authority he did not have, only means that a white woman has experienced what black men and women have experienced throughout the history of the United States.
My hope on this Martin Luther King Day 2026 is that we will witness something that we failed to see in the past. In the past, it was mostly black people who marched for black rights, mostly women who marched for women’s rights.
Yet, as has been said time and time again, unless all our rights are protected, none of our rights are protected.
What ICE has been doing is unconstitutional. The 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires a judicial warrant before search and seizure of person, property, or papers becomes legal.
The murder (or whatever variety of homicide a jury may ultimately decide is the precise category) of Renee Good simply cannot be justified by saying she ought to have complied. If you cause a disruption, you may be arrested–by police with the authority to do so. Jonathan Ross was guilty at every stage of his interaction with Good of what is known as “officer-created jeopardy.” Courts have found time and time again that an officer cannot escalate a situation or place themselves in harm’s way and then claim self defense when they shoot someone.
In the long term, the perpetrators of these actions need to be held accountable. In the short term, every person who believes in equality must take a stand.
That is more important than ever on this Martin Luther King Day 2026, when a warmonger president and his cronies have been seeking to erase black history, attacked efforts in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and are willing to use force to try to bully everyone into compliance.
Bullies cannot thrive when we refuse to be cowed into frightened compliance. No dictator can remain in power unless the majority of the populace respond to the threat of violence, death, and imprisonment with compliance.
The martyrdom of Martin Luther King needs to be in our minds not only on Martin Luther King Day 2026 but every day, until justice rolls down like a river, and righteousness like an everlasting stream.
King stood up to those both in official positions of authority and mobs of ordinary bullies. It cost him his life. Renee Good was led by her Christian faith to meet the injustices being perpetrated by ICE with nonviolent resistance. It cost her her life.
Yet when empire murders those who stand up to it, who respond with loving noncompliance, its true character is exposed.
These times call for courage. We may grow weary, but we must lift one another up and not give up.
While it is disheartening to see that people can exist in online information bubbles in which they won’t even see and hear true accounts of what is happening, that is nothing new, even if it takes a new form in the context of our current technology. Do you imagine that, when the civil rights movement was unfolding in the middle of the 20th century, white nationalist “Christians” read newspapers and heard sermons that accurately depicted what was happening?
Of course not.
Because today hate lives in bubbles that are not the walls of churches or of neighborhoods but online spaces, they are easier to penetrate.
The only way to win in this conflict is the method used by Jesus, and Gandhi, and King, and Good, and so many others. The South defeated by force swore to rise again, and its variety of white nationalist religion has managed to export itself far and wide. A second civil war would achieve no more lasting change, unless those who stand for justice wield love rather than guns.
That has never meant “passive” resistance. Love is active, and love disrupts what hate tries to do.
The only hope for our society and our world is for those who have been enticed by evil (something we are all capable of) realize it and experience repentance and redemption.
I have seen glimmers of this in the response to the murder of Renee Good. People who managed to persist until then in the belief that only criminals were being targeted had the lie exposed.
Those who do evil can only manage it, with a few exceptions, by convincing themselves that they are on the side of good.
When hatred attacks, beats, and murders, its disguise slips.
Patriots in the United States know that there is never justification for law enforcement or anyone else to kill you because you did not comply. You may be arrested. You may face charges. But you cannot be summarily executed.
Martin Luther King died from an assassin’s bullet, but many in the civil rights movement died at the hands of those who were considered legitimate authorities. People continue to be killed in both ways today. It takes courage to risk such consequences. Yet the only alternative to our persistence in love coupled with noncompliance is that evil wins.
On this Martin Luther King Day 2026, let us remember that the arc of the universe and of history does not bend towards justice unless we participate in bending it, not through force (which always ends up twisting it into a new weapon of violence) but through love.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In