Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Weekend
Hello again Runners, and welcome to the Final Countdown.
We have less than 10 days until Cheeto Face becomes President of the United States and the real work begins. Both MLK and Inauguration weekend are full of opportunities to plan and resist so I’m going to talk about both. In particular, the event roundup at the bottom for my DC people is very long and very interesting. Pick something to go to!
Topic 1: Martin Luther King Day
The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday has only been a National Holiday for a little over three decades. He is the only non-white person with a national paid holiday in their honor in the United States. Getting MLK’s birthday declared a National Holiday was an uphill battle fraught with racism and the worst kind of political foot-dragging. As with many victories against racism or sexism or homophobia, it is easy to forget how hard people had to fight to achieve them. So I thought I’d offer a (very) brief history into the difficulties of getting this Holiday passed into law.
The first legislation attempting to get King’s birthday made into a holiday was just days after his death in 1968. The bill wasn’t ultimately signed into law until 1983, under Reagan, which means it languished un-passed for over 16 years. During that time, the bill was introduced at various times and either didn’t have enough support to make it to a floor vote or was voted down by the House. Stevie Wonder’s song “Happy Birthday”, released in 1980, became a rallying cry for Coretta Scott King and Congressional supporters of the bill that led to its eventual passage.
Efforts to stop the bill from passing were many and varied. According to TIME Magazine:
“In an opposition campaign led primarily by Republican Senators John P. East and Jesse Helms of North Carolina, some attempted to emphasize King’s associations with communists and his alleged sexual dalliances as reasons not to honor him with a federal holiday. As part of his efforts, on Oct. 3, 1983, Helms read a paper on the Senate floor, written by an aide to Senator East, called “Martin Luther King Jr.: Political Activities and Associations” and also provided a 300-page supplemental document to the members of the Senate detailing King’s communist connections.”
Helms further appealed, unsuccessfully, to a Federal judge to unseal the classified FBI surveillance tapes of King just one day before ultimately passed in the Senate. He called it “the most dangerous piece of legislation [ever] introduced in Congress”.
The Bill was eventually signed into law, albeit not very enthusiastically, by Ronald Reagan, but the controversy didn’t die there. In 1987, just four years after the passage into law, Arizona governor Evan Mecham rescinded MLK Day as a paid holiday in Arizona, saying King “didn’t deserve a holiday”; he later re-instated the day as an unpaid holiday after heavy criticism. The state did not revert the day back to a full, paid holiday until 1992 (side note: Senator McCain was opposed to doing so). South Carolina didn’t recognize the holiday as a full paid holiday for all of its workers until 2000, being the final state to do so. Three states — Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi — still currently celebrate Confederate General Robert E. Lee on the same day set aside as MLK Day.
So we have the holiday, but the fight isn’t over. And it’s not over in more ways than one. The Holiday itself not being fully celebrated is of course petty and worrying, but I think we can all agree that the lack of completion of what it stands for is even more worrying. In 2008, Barack Obama’s Inauguration was the day right before Martin Luther King Day, a confluence of symbolism so profound that it put many in this country into a race-related stupor. This is what Martin Luther King had fought for; and while most of us still knew there was work to do, we also felt safe, I think. I did.
Jelani Cobb, writing in the New Yorker, points out that honoring an activist with a government holiday has an inherent awkwardness to it. Activists are, by their nature, fighting the government. And this awkwardness embodies King’s entire life as it related to government: he was invited to President Kennedy’s inauguration, but also shadowed by the FBI. He was revered and hated by government and intellectuals at the same time. And now:
“Next year, Donald Trump will preside over a holiday dedicated to a man whose principles he scarcely seems to comprehend. In a speech that King delivered in 1967, in Atlanta, he condemned the Vietnam War and warned against what he called “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.” All three figured prominently in Trump’s Presidential campaign.”
We’ve come a long way, and honoring a holiday is perhaps an empty gesture, especially if that’s the only day of the year you honor the legacy of the Civil Rights movement and racial justice in this country. But perhaps we can still take this controversial day, so close to inauguration, as always, and do something positive with it anyway. MLK weekend has traditionally become a weekend of service. There are organized volunteering events in DC, Chicago, probably wherever you are. Go here and type in your zip code. Or just call a local organization and ask if you can help them out. If you’re in DC, check out some of the events at the bottom of this letter, which include lots of anti-racism and anti-Trump events (obviously); I can’t think of two causes MLK would be more supportive of. In the face of such radical racism and other types of hatred, honoring this holiday and remembering its hard-won origins are an act of resistance.
Topic 2: Inauguration Weekend
Inauguration Day and the day after are going to be really crazy for most of us, especially in DC. I want all of you to keep your personal safety in mind at any protests you attend. Try to attend with friends and make a plan beforehand as to what you’ll do if you get separated, what you’ll do if you meet someone hostile, etc. Dress for the weather. Most of us will be out in the cold for hours. Bring water. Bring food. Wear good shoes. This sounds silly but I anticipate DC being a complete madhouse, and I don’t want anyone going to the hospital unless it’s because you were defending a tiny child protester and her kitten from a violent white supremacist. In that case give it all ya got. This guide from right-to-protest.org is fantastic and brief. Read it. Also check out this activist’s guide to first aid. Don’t be alarmed: you are not likely to get hurt, but it’s good to be prepared.
On Inauguration Day itself, which is Friday January 20, there are some protests and events going on in DC. ANSWER Coalition has a massive demonstration planned at Freedom Plaza downtown, with almost 1,500 people having said they’re going on the Facebook event page. Legalization for All is also protesting on the 20th, calling it a National Day of Protest for Immigration Rights. Finally DisruptJ20 is hosting a “Festival” of Resistance starting with a march at 12pm in front of Union Station. If you’re not in DC, a quick google search is your friend, or check out this article from Bustle on how to find a protest near you.
If protesting isn’t your thing, or if you’re looking for a form of resistance that isn’t an actual March, there are a lot of those as well. In fact, protest inaugural balls are a hot thing here in DC. There’s one at the African American History Museum called the Peace Ball (this event is currently sold out). DCist does a nice round-up of anti-Trump balls in the area, as well as a piece on area musicians hosting a concert to fundraise for the arts that weekend. Some not in the DCist piece include The People’s Inaugural Ball, an “alternative Inaugural Ball for millennials of color” and the Refugee Ball on January 17 to support immigrants and refugees (also in the event links below). As yet another alternative, Politics and Prose is hosting its second teach-in in a series at their Connecticut Ave NW location. The teach-in is on Inauguration evening and the topic is Women’s Rights. ❤ I will likely attend this one, no RSVP required but show up early. There is also a teach in called We Are Progress which is designed to “help equip progressive Millennials with the issue strategies and skills necessary to mount an effective resistance against the Trump Administration”. There are many other opportunities for activism besides attending the inauguration itself. Decide what works for you.
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) — DC also has a spreadsheet of many events going on that they and Black Lives Matter DC are hosting or attending and how to RSVP. Some of SURJ’s events prior to the 20th are in the event links at the bottom of this newsletter, but for the 20th and 21st check their spreadsheet.
January 21st, the day after the Inauguration, is pretty much going to be dominated by the Women’s March on Washington.
The Women’s March has received a permit to protest, for those of you who were following that drama, but they will not be meeting in front of the Lincoln Memorial as originally planned. Logistics for the DC portion can be found on their website. The March starts at 10am and is meeting at the corner of Independence Ave and Third St SW. There are also non-DC chapters of this march, all of which are listed here happening all over the country. Find your local group’s facebook page or website and figure ou the logistics in advance. If you are traveling to DC for this march, utilize local resources for a place to stay. I will likely be hosting a friend or two. If you live here, consider offering your home to someone you know for a night. You may also choose to march with an activist group you’ve been a part of so that you have a ready-made community within the March. Local groups participating are numerous and include the Women’s Information Network (WIN), SURJ-DC, and Planned Parenthood.
Logistics for this will be nuts. Street closures in DC are extensive, and millions of people are expected to turn out. The DC government has a webpage specifically on logistics. Check on street closures before planning to travel anywhere and give yourself plenty of time.
If a lot of people you know are going to a particular event, consider hosting a pre-protest prep party to discuss the logistics I’ve mentioned. Make it fun: make glittery signs and t-shirts together, eat snacks, and plan your resistance. Organization will be key. I wish all of you the best of luck and I will see you out there…
Good Night and Good Luck
-This week began a packed few days of confirmation hearings for Trump appointees, including Jeff Sessions, racist af nomiee for Attorney General, and seven others (it was originally eight others, but his pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has been pushed to next week). This guide on the timing of all the hearings is excellent and also includes in the schedule Trump’s press conference. This will be his first one since being elected. There are two different questions going on here: 1.) the sheer number of hearings in such a short span of time and 2.) the fact that the ethics review process has not been completed or made public for several of the nominees. According to analysis by Slate, the number of hearings is actually pretty normal when compared to Obama and Bush numbers. The ethics thing is not. Read about the unfinished ethics reviews here and here.
-Last Friday, Trump finally received a briefing from intelligence agencies on Russian hacking. The agencies then released the declassified report, saying Putin himself intervened to help Donald Trump win, which really wasn’t news to people who’d been reading their previous statements. Donald still seems skeptical…
-The fight over Obamacare and its fate accelerated rapidly this week, with the Senate participating in a vote-a-rama (that is what it’s actually called) late into Wednesday night and this morning which resulted in the gutting of several key provisions of the ACA through a process known as reconciliation, which is not subject to a filibuster. Democrats used the sessions to force over seven hours of committee, introducing many symbolic amendments. All of them, including amendments to protect Medicaid, protest women’s access to healthcare, and keep provisions in to allow those with pre-existing conditions to remain covered, were struck down by the Republican majority.
-President Obama gave his farewell address to the nation on Tuesday night. We all cried. If you haven’t seen it yet you can cry too. His main takeaways were that we as citizens need to organize and fight for democracy. He also, depite everything, retains his basic faith in people. The President’s optimism that Americans are basically good is, many argue, linked to his own upbringing and the acceptance from day one by his white relatives. Many journalists have written that this is both what enabled him to be the first black president and what has kept him from making a more lasting racial legacy. Jamelle Bouie’s piece on Slate on that topic is worth a read.
-Lots of news is coming out as a result of the confirmation hearings besides the hearings themselves. Big items include Jeff Sessions saying in his hearings that he would not back a law banning Muslims from the US if he were Attorney General; Rex Tillerson being aggressively grilled by Marco Rubio over his refusal to say Russia has committed war crimes in Syria. Keep up with the takeaways from the Sessions hearing here, the Tillerson hearing here and the Elaine Chao hearings (who was easily confirmed as Transportation Secretary yesterdya, and who is also Mitch McConnell’s wife) here.
-Trump, as I mentioned, had a press conference on Wednesday. One big takeaway was reiteration that he will not release his tax returns, and his claim that no one but the media cares about them. He also went pretty hard after a CNN reporter, calling CNN “fake news” and threatening to bar CNN from future press events if they continued to ask hard questions. Get the fact-checked version from the Times.
A note on another piece of news…
Hello everyone, I actually really hate being this person so bear with me. I find these sorts of remonstrances are often both condescending and pedantic, so I’m going to try to avoid lecturing, but I do have something to say. The allegations against Donald Trump that have been circulating since Tuesday, released by Buzzfeed, on his ties to Russia and his alleged paying of prostitutes to pee on him on a bed the Obamas slept in (if you are behind on the news, welcome to our new reality!) are as of yet unverified by US intelligence. The involvement of neither a former British Intelligence Officer nor of John McCain proves that the allegations are actually true, as we do not know where they got their information from originally. Just because John McCain passed the information on to the FBI (information they apparently already had anyway) does not mean the claims will ultimately pan out; he is not an intelligence officer nor did he find the information himself. He got it from somewhere, and we don’t know where. It all might very well turn out to be real, but we simply do not know that yet.
I completely understand the impulses that I believe are driving the spread of this story.
1.) It is funny (in a macabre sort of way), and we all could use some humor right now. I would never take the Golden Shower jokes away from you guys. Forget they go low we go high, we’re entitled to a little fun at the expense of a horrible fascist misogynist. And the idea that because we joke about something means we can’t also understand the political implications is patently absurd. So carry on! The internet has not disappointed me:
2.) The media and the public did NOT exercise the same care and caution about Hillary Clinton’s so-called “scandals”, nor about Donald Trump’s many lies, as they are about these allegations. The New York Times piece on the subject says RIGHT in the headline that the claims are “Unsubstantiated”. I never saw the words “unsubstantiated claims” with regard to Clinton’s emails in giant letters. When Trump lies about something, the headlines often do not call out the lie. They say simply “Trump Claimed X” not “Trump makes *unsubstantiated* claim about X”. The Wall Street Journal editor even said outright that calling one of Trump’s lies a lie would make his paper seem like they aren’t objective and has refused to do it, but we have no problem cautioning everyone and their mother against jumping to conclusions regarding Trump’s ties to Russia, which there is actual other evidence for. It’s natural to be angry about this, and maybe even to want some kind of revenge: a lie for a lie. I really get it. It’s infuriating.
3.) Maybe even for some of you, whether or not the story is true doesn’t matter so long as it may lead to Trump’s impeachment or discredit him in any way. After all, what are principles in the face of the human suffering he is likely to cause during his tenure? Do the three million immigrants he plans to deport in the first year really care that liberals stuck to their ethical principles regarding truth in media if the end result is that their lives are still ruined? Doubtful. This ends-justifies-the-means approach is also understandable.
So, all of these things are on my mind. But ultimately I have to remind people — and I am in NO WAY implying that my lovely friends discussing this story are in the same vein as gun-toting extremists but I think I need to gently bring this up anyway — that my partner’s life was put in danger by people who don’t care about the truth. Who will spread any story, vetted or not, that they want to be true, rather than ones that really are true. Again, I know you guys would never take something that far, but maybe someone in your distant orbit of acquaintanceship would. But not everything has to be life and death. Whether you care about media literacy or honesty in journalism; whatever hooks you related to this issue — and that certainly doesn’t have to be respect for Mr. Trump, who has no respect for anyone but himself — please tap into it to exercise just a little caution. Make the jokes if you want, share the story and talk about what is actually worrying about it (that linked piece from the Atlantic is a great read if you have time), but I’m asking you as friends to let people know that the story has not been vetted, that the facts are not all in. Just because the story SEEMS true, or because you WISH it were true, or something LIKE it is sort of true, doesn’t mean it is true.
And that’s it folks! As usual, check out my Pinterest board for, well, pins and my Medium page if you’d prefer a blogged version of this newsletter. Sometimes I post mid-week tidbits on there as well. Fill out my anonymous Google feedback form to suggest a topic or playfully troll me. Follow me on Twitter at @speaknojessica. Subscribe to The ForeRunner at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner or read my back issues, all of which are public, at http://tinyletter.com/theforerunner/archive. Tell your friends to sign up, because every time someone new subscribes a dude who was going to hit on a woman at a protest decides now is not the time. I totally welcome dissent on on any issue discussed. Reply to this newsletter or contact me personally if you know me. Dialogue is important, and if we can’t even respectfully confront our allies, we definitely won’t be able to confront hatred.
In solidarity,
JM
Event link round up (local to DC unless otherwise noted):
This is a very long list, and does not even include the 20th and 21st. Just pick one or two events that sound interesting to you. No need to overwhelm yourself.
January 12: Organizing for Non-Organizers in the Face of Trump hosted by Good Guys DC, this is an excellent training and it will fill up so RSVP
January 13–15: Jubilee Anti-Racism Training, costs $, only a few seats left CHECK THIS
January 13: Plugging into Anti-Islamaphobia Work in DC hosted by Muslim American Women’s Policy Forum and the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, RSVP Required
January 14: January Organizing Meeting hosted by Positive Force DC
January 14: Building Racial Justice in DC, part of a Workshop Series for White People hosted by Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) DC
January 14: Know Your Rights Workshop hosted by Positive Force DC, RSVP Required, training on civilian-police interaction
January 14: Teach-in Resisting a Muslim Registry hosted by SURJ DC, RSVP required
January 14: Art Making Party for Women’s March hosted by SURJ DC, RSVP required
January 14–16: Resisting Trump Action Camp hosted by DisruptJ20 is partnering with Black Student Alliance (BSA) and Latino and American Student Organization (LASO), must RSVP, all weekend
January 16: Paid Family Leave Victory Party hosted by Jews United for Justice at the Human Rights Campaign, RSVP Required, you did not have to work on the Paid Family Leave campaign to attend and this might be a good way to meet local activists, I will be there
January 17: Refugee Inaugural Ball to demonstrate solidarity with our refugee and immigrant neighbors at Sixth and I, RSVP required, full at the moment but you can get on a waitlist
January 17: Resisting Trump hosted by the Women’s Information Network (WIN), RSVP required
January 19: Confirmation Hearings Strategy Session hosted by the Women’s Information Network (WIN), RSVP required, strategy session and letter writing evening to select Congressional Committees on reproductive rights, I will be there.
(As a side note, my friend Ashley recommended joining WIN, an organization of pro-choice Democratic women, and said all of her DC advocacy women friends are members, so if you’d like to get a membership (not required for the events listed here) that’s here.)
January 19: Reclaim MLK DC Open House hosted by Black Lives Matter DC
January 20th and 21st: See links throughout the section on Inauguration Weekend
