Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
–Frederick Douglass, 1857
This weekend, the Reverend Al Sharpton and his National Action Network are convening the “Measuring the Movement” confab. Incidentally, President Barack Obama is poised to make his second nomination to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), in the wake of the announced resignation of Justice John Paul Stevens.
These might seem like two totally unrelated events, but they’re not. At least they shouldn’t be. In fact, in my mind, what better metric of Black progress is there for the Black opinion leaders meeting in New York this weekend than a successful campaign for the nomination of one who shares our life experience to sit on the highest court in the land?
After all, many of us shout, “No Justice, No Peace” in the face of police brutality, and we rail and rally against unfair sentencing laws and America’s shameful “prison industrial complex.” Well, this writer thinks we need to modify this call to action and very respectfully—yet emphatically—send this same message to President Obama.
Now.
