On Wednesday morning, the nation awoke to some truly breathtaking news: the son of a woman who picked cotton to put food on her family’s table, and raised her son to one day preach from Dr. King’s pulpit in Atlanta, and a 33-year old Jewish man who once worked for Representative John Lewis, were elected to represent the state of Georgia in the US Senate. Their victory was the product of years of hard work by progressives in Georgia, and around the country, and it had powerful national implications, shifting control of the US Senate to Democrats as President-Elect Joe Biden prepares to take office.
Celebrations of the historic victory in Georgia were short-lived, though, as by early afternoon a gathering storm sparked and thundered in Washington, DC. As Democrats and Republicans debated Biden’s election victory in a joint session of Congress, outside in the streets, just down Pennsylvania Avenue, President Trump was feeding thousands of his most ardent supporters a steady diet of lies, grievance, and conspiracy theories, exhorting them to march on the Capitol building and demand that Congress overturn last November’s election results.
The battle between these two fundamentally opposed ideas has ebbed and flowed since the launch of the American experiment, the yin and yang of our national political life. But while the divisions it has engendered have never been fully resolved, it is important to remember that those divisions have never fully succeeded in preventing the forces of progress from advancing their cause, either...
...we must not let the events of Wednesday afternoon overshadow those of Wednesday morning. Indeed, the way forward goes through Georgia. Not Georgia the state, but Georgia the creative, hard-fought victory that overcame concerted efforts to suppress the vote with tireless organizing to achieve unprecedented levels of participation in last week’s run-off election. That precious victory is not just proof that the forces of white supremacy are on the defensive and growing weaker, it provides a blueprint for how to defend and expand progress toward an ever more inclusive democracy in the future.
It will not be easy. The truth itself is under attack. But the latest chapter in this country’s “story of resistance to the anti-democratic forces fearful of change, and of courageous individuals who will not abandon the fight for human equality,” remains to be written, and now, more than ever before in our country’s history, we hold the pen...
