Patrisse Cullors - The New York Times "Without the Right to Protest, America Is Doomed to Fail"

The New York Times | October 2, 2020

“‘To sin by silence, when we should protest, / Makes cowards of men’ sounds like a slogan from any of the innumerable Black Lives Matter marches that have erupted around the world this year. A contemporary reading might be distilled to: #ProtestMatters. The quote’s source? The poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose poem ‘Protest’ was published in 1914.

Protest is the foundational variable of the American experiment. Every pivot point in the history of our country is rooted in it. From the Boston Tea Party of 1773 to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s immortal ‘I Have a Dream’ speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, a nation ‘of the people, by the people’ is only as robust and defensible as its protections of the right to protest.

Protests led by Black Americans, though often unrecognized, have been particularly crucial to every great political movement in this country. From Crispus Attucks (the first martyr of the Revolutionary War) to Ida B. Wells and the Black suffragists fighting for women’s right to vote, Black and brown people have always protested for comprehensive systemic change and freedom for all Americans, even when they’ve been denied freedom themselves.”

Follow the link above to read the full op-ed from Patrisse Cullors.