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In 2020, I had the honor of joining John Lewis in Selma to pay tribute to the men and women who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday.” I spent some time with Chuck Neblett, one of the Freedom Singers, and asked him what it was about Dr. King that made him so powerful.

He said, “Emmet Till.”

It was his mother Mamie Till’s decision to share the pictures of her son’s brutalized body that galvanized a whole country to stand up. Chuck had tremendous respect for Dr. King – but it was the movement that came first.

Voices like Dr. King’s have defined what it means to be an American. The movement he personified lives on in every one of us who continues to vote, mobilize, and organize for a country that lives up to its promises of justice and equality for all.

Our democracy is in its most endangered state since the Civil War. In moments like this, may we draw our hope and our courage not only from Martin Luther King’s extraordinary life and legacy, but from the knowledge that he did not march alone.

Distant though it may seem, there will come a day when we reject the tyranny of hate and fear. That day, we’ll enter a new era, armed with the lessons of this one, and the process of healing will begin. A day when America will once again be a beacon of light and progress; the architect of a safer and more peaceful future.

Our work is not finished. But we’ll weather the next four years side by side. And in the meantime, I implore you not to lose faith in democracy, or in the goodness of others. Love has got the numbers.

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Gratefully yours,
Sean Casten
PAID FOR BY CASTEN FOR CONGRESS
Casten for Congress
P.O. Box 132
Downers Grove, IL 60515-0132
United States
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