“Tyranny and democratic republics do not proceed in the same way, however. It ignores the body and goes straight for the soul.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

On Nov. 6, one day after the presidential election, millions of Americans woke up hoping they had just experienced a virtual nightmare. It felt like something evil had attacked the very soul of the nation.

While millions are gleeful, millions more are depressed and uninspired. They remember campaign promises of mass deportation, retribution, enemy lists, and the nefarious Project 2025 taking away fundamental American rights.

All three branches of government will now be held by a majority of political leaders who do not appreciate America’s immense multicultural communities. People in many places just don’t know what to do. After crying and sighing, some even want to retreat into a shell of invisibility, questioning the relevancy of the electoral process.

They witness daily the trotting out of unqualified rightwing MAGA extremists to lead the departments of Defense, Education, Justice, Health and Human Services, and Intelligence. The nominee for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, who possessed no qualifications for the job, was forced to withdraw due to charges of sexual impropriety. Similar allegations are being investigated about two other nominees, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., for Health, and Pete Hegseth for Defense. Is this an attempt to normalize such behavior, as President-Elect Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse resulting in a $5 million judgement with still other charges pending?

No one should be shocked or surprised at these nominees. Trump is doing exactly what he said. The joke is not on him but on those who would not believe this was the true character of the man. What a dichotomy. Trump, who wants to be a dictator for a day, is scheduled for inauguration on Jan. 20, the same day the nation celebrates the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Drum Major of freedom and justice.

What would King do at such a time as this? There is no need to ask. One can see exactly what he did. He stood up to anticivil rights advocates such as Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor, Sherriff Jim Clark, and Sens. Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms. King opposed laws designed to restrict civil rights along with rightwing judges and governors from the south and the north. He did not stop going forward.

“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right,” King said. “A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to stand for that which is true.” Now is not the time to die. Now is the time to live and go forward. We must stop pointing fingers at what could have been done yesterday. We must start pointing our hands toward what must be done today.

Let us use this lame-duck period to do much more in 2024. Debating about who was right and who was wrong takes our focus away from the business of right now. Bills are being passed threatening to take the tax-exempt status away from nonprofit organizations, accusing them of supporting terrorists. State legislators are gearing up to ban books and eliminate more programs of DEI, reversing the civil and human rights of individuals and certain groups.

There are still judges to be appointed federally and at the appellate level. Freedom still beckons us forward. Now is the time to come together regardless of race, gender, faith, labor, business, poor, or bountiful.

Frederick Douglass reminds us, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will.” We are still in the demanding business. We demand respect and dignity. We demand freedom and the full rights written and expressed not in a faded Constitution enclosed at the National Archives but written in a living document still held responsible for guaranteeing the freedom and liberty for all American lives. Don’t agonize, organize. Let’s not react, let us act. Let us add to the victories already achieved.

In 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, Dr. King faced a Congress and a Senate with only three Black congresspersons and no Black senators. In January 2025, 60 Black congresspersons and five Black senators will take national office. Every stakeholder, believing in freedom and justice, should work together on a common agenda. What turned red in 2024 can be turned blue in 2026 and 2028. It ain’t about the color. It’s about the policy. It is about programs to lift up all people, not just a few privileged individuals.

In the words of my grandmother Arie Neal, when our heads were hung low, she said, “Hold your head up. Stand up and fly right.” Since Philadelphia 1789 and before, the Black church has been standing up, “walking by faith, not by sight,” NAACP, we’ve been standing up since 1909. Can’t sit down now. Teamsters have been standing up since 1903, Anti-Defamation League 1913, American Federation of Teachers 1916, American Civil Liberties Union 1920, the League of Women Voters 1920, National Bar Association 1925, the League of United Latin American Citizens 1929, United Auto Workers 1935, NAACP Legal Defense Fund 1940, Leadership Council of Civil Rights 1950, National Action Network 1991, Arab American Civil Rights League 2011.

Don’t give up the fight now. We must resist tyranny and persist in the cause of freedom and liberty. We must keep going. Mother Harriet Tubman gave us our marching orders. “If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they are shouting after you, keep going. Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” Let’s all keep going.

So, in my Christian tradition, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come. Who is this King of glory? (It ain’t no President!) He is the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” Let us remember, “The battle does not belong to us, but the battle belongs to God.”