Published:
Friday, January 17, 2025
Friends,
In December, I had the extraordinary opportunity to join a civil rights history tour in Georgia and Alabama with the Institute for Common Power. Led by experts, historians, and activists from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, our group traveled the path of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work and legacy. We visited Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where MLK, Jr. and his father served as co-pastors and civil rights activists gathered to plan marches and other actions. We walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police brutally attacked marchers on Bloody Sunday in 1965; and we visited Bryan Stevenson's Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery. We spent time in so many other historical places (far too many for me to describe here) and each site was incredibly moving and thought-provoking.
The weeklong tour cemented my already strong conviction about the link between the history of Black peoples’ struggle for freedom in the United States and our current moment. The throughline cannot be overstated. At the ACLU-WA, we embrace this truth and work toward more just Black futures with and beside community and those most impacted by injustice and oppression.
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – as a new year and a new presidential administration begins – and continuing through Black Futures Month in February, we all have the opportunity to hold space to reflect on the struggles of our past, the challenges of our moment and the future of equity, justice and freedom we want to build together.
We know we walk in the path of so many, named and unnamed, whose commitment to Black futures shaped and powered the Civil Rights Movement. MLK, Jr. did not do his work alone. We remember activists like Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought for Black voting rights in Mississippi. We lift up the thousands of Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama who boycotted the city’s segregated buses for 382 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott resulted in a federal court ruling in 1956, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, declaring segregation on public buses unconstitutional. And we honor the countless others who sacrificed and labored on behalf of Black futures!
To stand in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s South is to see our nation’s present injustices and to imagine a future of equity and freedom for all. Many of us will not be able to go to the historical sites I visited, but we can all see the past — and its connections to our moment and our future — clearly. We can choose to learn the history of slavery, oppression and discrimination in the United States. We can commit to bearing witness to injustice in the past and the present. In our current times, we see the pregnant person who dies of sepsis in a hospital parking lot while being denied life-saving treatment; we see the repeated violent police killings of Black people and other people of color; we see the immigrant communities targeted and scapegoated by politicians.
MLK, Jr. sought to create a future for black people defined by justice, equity and peace. He saw in the United States the possibility of freedom for all in the fight for black liberation. At the ACLU of Washington, we remain committed to this vision of freedom — to protecting and expanding civil rights and civil liberties for all.
We may hear current leaders attempt to co-opt Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy — to redefine his vision of freedom for the purpose of limiting its reach and restricting our civil rights and civil liberties. Our test in this moment is to hold fast to what is true.
A number of Donald Trump’s stated goals are an assault on MLK, Jr.’s vision of hope and equity for all: pursuing mass deportations; attacking diversity, equity and inclusion practices; suppressing the right to protest and retaliating against political dissidents; erasing federal protections for LGBTQIA2S+ people; and promoting unconstitutional and brutal practices in the criminal legal system. At ACLU-WA, we are fighting back against federal repression and to protect civil rights and civil liberties by identifying areas where Washington state can resist. For more information, please visit our webpage Washington: A Firewall for Freedom.
The forces that seek to cut us off from the lessons of our past and to obscure the unjust and cruel realities of our moment will not prevail. We have an obligation to recognize these struggles and work to ensure that no one else endures the same pains.
MLK, Jr. and the thousands of other leaders and activists who participated in the Civil Rights Movement knew barriers. They knew injustice. They faced those circumstances and continued to call out and combat discrimination and oppression. That is our task today.
To that end, I urge you to take action:
Together, we are building a future — despite barriers, opposition and the attempted erasure of history – where Black people are free, and therefore everyone is free.
Onward toward justice and freedom,
michele storms,
Executive Director of the ACLU of Washington
In December, I had the extraordinary opportunity to join a civil rights history tour in Georgia and Alabama with the Institute for Common Power. Led by experts, historians, and activists from the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, our group traveled the path of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work and legacy. We visited Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where MLK, Jr. and his father served as co-pastors and civil rights activists gathered to plan marches and other actions. We walked the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where police brutally attacked marchers on Bloody Sunday in 1965; and we visited Bryan Stevenson's Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration in Montgomery. We spent time in so many other historical places (far too many for me to describe here) and each site was incredibly moving and thought-provoking.
The weeklong tour cemented my already strong conviction about the link between the history of Black peoples’ struggle for freedom in the United States and our current moment. The throughline cannot be overstated. At the ACLU-WA, we embrace this truth and work toward more just Black futures with and beside community and those most impacted by injustice and oppression.
Today, on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day – as a new year and a new presidential administration begins – and continuing through Black Futures Month in February, we all have the opportunity to hold space to reflect on the struggles of our past, the challenges of our moment and the future of equity, justice and freedom we want to build together.
We know we walk in the path of so many, named and unnamed, whose commitment to Black futures shaped and powered the Civil Rights Movement. MLK, Jr. did not do his work alone. We remember activists like Fannie Lou Hamer, who fought for Black voting rights in Mississippi. We lift up the thousands of Black residents of Montgomery, Alabama who boycotted the city’s segregated buses for 382 days. The Montgomery Bus Boycott resulted in a federal court ruling in 1956, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, declaring segregation on public buses unconstitutional. And we honor the countless others who sacrificed and labored on behalf of Black futures!
To stand in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s South is to see our nation’s present injustices and to imagine a future of equity and freedom for all. Many of us will not be able to go to the historical sites I visited, but we can all see the past — and its connections to our moment and our future — clearly. We can choose to learn the history of slavery, oppression and discrimination in the United States. We can commit to bearing witness to injustice in the past and the present. In our current times, we see the pregnant person who dies of sepsis in a hospital parking lot while being denied life-saving treatment; we see the repeated violent police killings of Black people and other people of color; we see the immigrant communities targeted and scapegoated by politicians.
MLK, Jr. sought to create a future for black people defined by justice, equity and peace. He saw in the United States the possibility of freedom for all in the fight for black liberation. At the ACLU of Washington, we remain committed to this vision of freedom — to protecting and expanding civil rights and civil liberties for all.
We may hear current leaders attempt to co-opt Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy — to redefine his vision of freedom for the purpose of limiting its reach and restricting our civil rights and civil liberties. Our test in this moment is to hold fast to what is true.
A number of Donald Trump’s stated goals are an assault on MLK, Jr.’s vision of hope and equity for all: pursuing mass deportations; attacking diversity, equity and inclusion practices; suppressing the right to protest and retaliating against political dissidents; erasing federal protections for LGBTQIA2S+ people; and promoting unconstitutional and brutal practices in the criminal legal system. At ACLU-WA, we are fighting back against federal repression and to protect civil rights and civil liberties by identifying areas where Washington state can resist. For more information, please visit our webpage Washington: A Firewall for Freedom.
The forces that seek to cut us off from the lessons of our past and to obscure the unjust and cruel realities of our moment will not prevail. We have an obligation to recognize these struggles and work to ensure that no one else endures the same pains.
MLK, Jr. and the thousands of other leaders and activists who participated in the Civil Rights Movement knew barriers. They knew injustice. They faced those circumstances and continued to call out and combat discrimination and oppression. That is our task today.
To that end, I urge you to take action:
- Read the new biography John Lewis: A Life, published in 2024, to learn more about Lewis’s incredible life story and leadership during the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis barely survived a beating by Alabama State troopers on Bloody Sunday and went on to serve in Congress from 1987 until 2020.
- Learn about the ACLU-WA’s plans in Olympia this session by reviewing our 2025 Legislative Agenda.
- Make your voice heard at ACLU-WA’s 2025 Legislative Advocacy Day on Feb. 10, when we will join community partners from across the state to urge lawmakers to pass meaningful criminal legal system reform.
Together, we are building a future — despite barriers, opposition and the attempted erasure of history – where Black people are free, and therefore everyone is free.
Onward toward justice and freedom,
michele storms,
Executive Director of the ACLU of Washington
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