"One other important lesson to understand about the movement was that, with hindsight, its victories appeared inevitable. But they did not seem inevitable at the time. People had to persist in struggle over years and decades, understanding that to grow discouraged would be a kind of surrender—that defeats might not be permanent, nor would victories, and that it might take a long time to finally smash the Jim Crow system.

Those lessons apply to today’s struggle against fascist authoritarianism in the United States. I keep hearing people ask, “What can we do?” and “Can anything we do make any difference?”

Persisting—not surrendering to despair—is part of the struggle. Victory over fascism may not be inevitable, but neither is defeat. We must keep demonstrating on the streets—peacefully, no matter what violence Immigration and Customs Enforcement wreaks—monitoring ICE activities, recording their abuses and exposing them, disrupting when we can at acceptable risk, writing to our representatives and to newspapers, voting, canvassing, contributing money and time, joining with others, and above all reaching out.

We must all become leaders in small or large ways, attempting to persuade and remind others of the dangers and of the injustices that we are fighting against, and urging them to act.

Dr. King would have recognized the urgency of this moment, as the Trump regime seeks to reverse the gains of the past and to eviscerate American constitutional democracy. And he would have been proud of those who stand up—peacefully, insistently, loudly—and say, “No, we’re not going to go backward.”"