Editorial

In this congressional session, House Republicans have chosen to hold America hostage with extreme demands that threaten funding for Social Security, Medicaid and programs that support children and senior citizens. Or else, they say, they will not support raising the debt ceiling.

In our country, there are thousands of politicians and appointed government officials who claim to work hard for their constituents. But here in Massachusetts, we have a history of public servants who have made a real difference in the lives of the people they serve. From Ed Brooke and Ruth Batson to Mel King and Ayanna Pressley, many local public officials have fought long and hard to create real positive change in our community. None has worked harder than Rachael Rollins.

So here we are once again, looking at the death of an unarmed Black man at the hands of a white man. And once again, our justice system was slow to react when it came to holding accountable the white man for the seemingly senseless murder.

When a college reaches 50 years old it is customary the talk about it in glowing terms, using phrases like “beacon of education” and “cherished asset of the community.”

We lost much on April 25, 2023. Harry Belafonte was more than a world-class performer, winning multiple music awards. He was also a world-class human being like few others right from the start.

The times we live in are challenging to our minds, bodies and spirits. For our spirits to survive, we as a people have to do what we have always done. We must focus on our art and culture for the strength to keep going in the face of this kind of unspeakable brutality.

For decades, we have relied on Supreme Court decisions like Brown v. Board of Education that outlawed systemic discrimination in public schools, and the 1966 decision to ban poll taxes in state elections to keep our country’s moral arc bending towards justice, as Martin Luther King Jr. famously said.

When our American political system has become so one-sided that elected officials can’t demand justice for six people killed by a mass shooter at a Christian school, we as a nation are in big trouble.

When I received the call from my good friend Mike King informing me his dad had left us after 94 years of life, I was hit with many emotions. But my sadness soon gave way to gratitude for the measure of this man we lost.

Black Americans cannot allow others to label us. Ours is a rich history of resistance and perseverance. History teaches us when we had nothing we created something out of nothing to uplift and support each other.

For young basketball fans like my sons, Ja Morant is a symbol of hope, an under-recruited kid out of high school who comes from a two-parent household in the small town of Dalzell, South Carolina.

While it is important to celebrate women’s place in history and all the contributions they have made in the past, it is also important to understand the national observance has activist roots.