January 2025
Photo from forfreedoms.org 2024 Billboards
Folks be funny lak dat. Dey takes the lies dey want and throws away the truths dat scares ‘em.
James by Percival Everett
The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) is committed to truth-telling. Between now and January 20, 2025, we encourage you to use this period to seriously consider how to support Middle Passage history and social justice. For the next four years we will be facing strong headwinds full of lies, bullying and other aggressive, anti-democratic, anti-Constitutional challenges by political leaders. However, this is nothing new. Our ancestors survived capture, the Middle Passage, slavery and segregation – all rationalized by fabrication, self-serving racism, religion, lust for power, and greed.
Presently it appears that many in the press, our courts, our legislative bodies, institutions, businesses, and industries are cowed and intimidated by Trump and his supporters to the extent that facts do not matter. No one is above the law. The January 6, 2021, Capitol building riot was not a “day of love;” the 2024 popular vote in the presidential election was not a “landslide” with a mandate to dismantle the federal government, especially with incompetent, inexperienced and vengeful people; the Jim Crow policy of “separate” was not “equal”; the Civil War was not a war of “Northern aggression;” and slavery was not a beneficial civilizing experience for our ancestors. The premise that if you repeat a lie long enough it becomes fact is counter to what many of us who value truth, liberty, equality, and opportunity are willing to accept.
How ironic that the character of the person who will hold the office of President during this country’s commemoration of 250 years of independence is in stark contrast to George Washington, the nation’s first elected leader [“The Moment of Truth,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2024]. Over more than two centuries, children have been taught that, when asked about a misdeed, Washington responded, “I cannot tell a lie.” Whether this incident occurred or not, that feature of truth-telling was conveyed as a principle quality of the presidency – it has been one of the cornerstones of the office . . . until now.
As a nation, we are at a crossroads. Will we enable and/or accept by our inaction chaos, disruption, violence, and persecution as a national agenda? Will we have the collective courage to practice care, responsibility, and compassion? Each of us has a choice. Using our heads, hearts and hands, how will we go forward to meet the challenges of the next four years?