I believe in the power of dates and remembrances. In a time such as America's (and the world's) democracy crisis and other great troubles, when people are being buffeted by so many forces at once, those dates, remembrances and accompanying rituals help to ground us and give us strength to endure and hopefully triumph.
Dates and rituals and remembrances are even more important for the heirs to the Black Freedom Struggle and other impaired citizens; they help us to locate ourselves in the continuities of history and to draw continued strength and wisdom from it. Our history and its truths and lessons take on even more importance when the likes of Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and the other Republican fascists are literally trying to erase them.
