Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, gave a speech delivered at both the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her speech was printed, as an essay, in the April 2024 edition of The Nation magazine.
As printed in The Nation, Alexander's essay was titled as follows: "Only Revolutionary Love Can Save Us Now." Her words, as Alexander reveals, were inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1967 speech condemning the Vietnam War.
I urge anyone reading this blog posting of mine to click that link, and to read Dr. King's speech. Read what Michelle Alexander has to say, too! Here are some of the words that Alexander chose to end her essay:
Twenty twenty-four just might be the year that changes everything. But the way that things change is ultimately up to us. It can be a time of world war, genocide, the collapse of democracy, and the loss of hope. Or it can be a time of great awakening—when we break our silences and act with greater courage and greater solidarity, a time when the existential threats that we are facing finally lead us to embrace humanity and perhaps even glimpse the spark of divinity that exists within each one of us, and all creation (emphasis added).
Small acts of personal courage can change history. They can change individual lives, and they can change the world. Dr. King's speech inspired me, and others, to resist the draft and to refuse to participate in the War in Vietnam. Thousands of young men refused and resisted; tens of thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands, took other actions to resist the war.
Let me reference, then, and slightly restate, what Margaret Mead said, in one of her most famous pronouncements. Margaret Mead said that we should "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world." That's true, and small acts of "revolutionary love," even individual acts, can do the same. As Mead claimed, "Indeed, that's the only thing that ever has."
I would like to amend Alexander's statement, as I have copied it out, above. I am proposing to change just two words. In that very first line, the one I have emphasized, where Alexander says, "just might," I would say, "must."
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