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From Original Sin to Flattering Mirror: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

By Jeanne Theoharis

…resident Ronald Reagan signed the bill in 1983 to make the third Monday of January a federal holiday for Martin Luther King Jr., the political uses of memorializing the movement took on heightened possibility as a national narrative. Fifteen years of opposition to the holiday gave way to recognizing its political utility. The civil rights movement became a way for the nation to feel good about its progress—and King’s legacy became enshrined in his…

Christian Nationalists Aim to Dismantle this Core Freedom

By Andrew L. Seidel

As Frederick Clarkson noted on RD earlier this week, every January 16 we celebrate Religious Freedom Day. On this day 234 years ago, the Virginia Assembly passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, setting in motion what, according to Clarkson, “may be the most revolutionary and liberatory idea in the history of civilization.” America’s unique contribution to political science is the separation of state and church. We invented it and it’s…

White Supremacy Erases Its Violence: The Predictable Blaming of Antifa

By Stephen Young

Within hours of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, the Republican House Rep and Trump ally Matt Gaetz gave a speech in the House chamber. This is the same chamber that had been under siege by a crowd Trump had himself urged to “show strength” and march on the Capitol, even promising, “I’ll be with you” (incidentally, he drove the opposite direction in his motorcade). Just like the MAGA fest outside the Capitol, the looters who broke in wer…

Today’s Inauguration Was a Reconsecration of Sacred Space

By Peter Laarman

…otion been suffused with the experience of suffering. The grief we feel on January 20 flows not just from Covid’s awful toll but also from our anguish over the obvious fragility of American democracy and our nation’s ever-worsening structural injustices—appalling inequities that are too often euphemized as “disparities.” I want to focus on suffering and the religious dimension. Just as soldiers once insisted that no one is an atheist in a foxhole,…

Blinken and ‘Blinkered’: Two Oath-of-Office Stories Embody a Divided America

By Andrew L. Seidel

…tony Blinken took his oath of office on a copy of the U.S. Constitution on January 27 and Vice President Kamala Harris administered the oath. That’s remarkable twice over: first, because Harris’s vice presidency is historic on so many levels, and second, because most officials opt—some by default, some from personal piety—to place their hand on a Bible when taking an oath of office. Those who use a different book are newsworthy; some presidents ha…

2021 National Prayer Breakfast: A Kinder Gentler Christian Capitalism

By Becky Garrison

…port the “Stop the Steal” campaign until protestors stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Furthermore, while the NPB remains largely Republican run, twelve current Democratic members of Congress signed off on using their names as “honorary” representatives and senators for this year’s breakfast. In his bestselling book, The Family, and the Netflix documentary of the same name, Sharlet detailed how by “introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Famil…

How Do You Beat a ‘Pretty Damning’ Impeachment Case? You Lie

By John Stoehr

…ocrats presented evidence Wednesday substantiating the allegation that, on January 6, Donald Trump incited an insurrection against the United States. For about eight hours, to be followed today by another eight hours, the impeachment managers showed a pattern of violent rhetoric by the former president, and tried to show a connection between his violent rhetoric and his supporters’ violent actions. In granular and exhaustive detail, the managers w…

At Launch Rally in Waco, Former President Sets the Stakes for Trump ’24 Campaign with Apocalyptic, Violent, Genocidal Rhetoric

By Annika Brockschmidt & Thomas Lecaque

…h, with the former president posing stoically on stage as footage from the January 6th insurrection played on the screens behind him with the speakers blaring “Justice for All”—a song by Trump and the J6 Prison Choir released to raise money for the insurrectionists’ legal aid fund. The song itself is a compilation of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and the choir singing “The Star-Spangled Banner,” harmless enough if not for the official en…

The Uses and Abuses of the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

By A. E. Brooks-Key

…By the time I started middle school, I was getting the third Monday off in January in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Next came the fight to recognize the MLK holiday at the state level. I vividly remember listening to Public Enemy’s “By the Time I Get to Arizona” in support of making the King holiday a state holiday in the last remaining holdout. By 1994, however, King’s Dream seemed like a faraway fantasy. Drugs and gang violence had overta…

Liberals Need Not Choose Between Sexual Abuse Survivors and the Religious Minority Communities That Failed Them

By Afzal Upal

…i Ahmadis at home have bravely chosen to speak out. In a Twitter thread on January 13 and 14, a leading civil rights activist, M. Jibran Nasir (often called the “conscience of Pakistan”) wrote: “More victims of sexual abuse within Ahmadi Community continue to speak against culture of silencing victims and protecting abusers adopted by the leadership of the community. One must hear the alleged audio recording between Nida Ul Nasser and Ahmadi Calip…