HAPPY DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DAY , a holiday here in the U.S.A. May MLK Jr's teaching and principles ring loud in these
trying times.
ITP V.026 is taking the rest of the day off from blogging today in observance of DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR DAY...
1/15/2026 would have been civil rights leader DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR birthday.
DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR was assassinated 4/4/1968.
FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING JR ESTATE:
Among the seminal Kingian teachings that will galvanize us in completing this mission is that humanity is interdependent, interrelated, and interconnected.
In 2026, embracing Dr. King’s teachings on the World House calls us to move beyond rhetoric and into courageous practice. It asks us to choose cooperation over domination, community over isolation, and moral imagination over fear. It requires that we reject racism, militarism, and excessive materialism (poverty), not only as social evils, but as barriers to our shared survival.” -Dr. Bernice A. King (CEO of The King Center)
My father didn’t live, lead with courage, and die by state sanctioned assassination long ago and far away.
Please share your thoughts. Are there any you’ve never seen before? Any that are particularly powerful or moving to you?
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated his life fighting for equity and justice. He taught us that even in the face of intimidation and discrimination, we must never stop working towards a better future – a lesson that feels especially relevant today.
— Barack Obama (@barackobama.bsky.social) January 19, 2026 at 9:01 AM
FROM ROBERT REICH:
Friends,
Today we honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr.
Trump has removed MLK Jr.’s birthday from the National Park Service’s fee-free days and substituted his own birthday of June 14 as a fee-free day.
All told, I feel profound sorrow for America. Sorrow for the people of Minneapolis who are enduring this Trump-made hell. Sorrow for Renee Good’s three children and wife.
I also feel sorrow for Greenlanders and Venezuelans and others around the world fearing what the sociopath in the Oval Office may do next. Sorrow for everyone justifiably worried about the future of America and the planet because of him.
I’m old enough to remember when Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission seemed impossible. Just as the mission you and I must now engage in — defeating Trumpism and creating a new and better America out of the rubble and chaos he is wreaking — may seem impossible at this moment.
Martin Luther King Jr. accomplished more than anyone thought he could when he began. He did it with patience and perseverance, with the strength of conviction. He did it with calmness, reason, and quiet passion.
And he did it with civil disobedience — what one of his assistants, the late great congressman John Lewis, called “good trouble.”
Good trouble meant mobilizing the nation against racial injustice by making sure almost everyone saw its horrors. Night after night on the news — watching peaceful civil rights marchers getting clobbered by white supremacists.
I remember watching Bull Connor, commissioner of public safety in Birmingham, and his goons use firehoses and attack dogs against Black people — including children — who were peacefully standing up for their rights.
The scenes horrified America and much of the world. Yet were it not for our painful national exposure to racist brutality, we wouldn’t have gotten the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act.
I’ve been thinking of those scenes as I’ve watched ICE thugs patrolling Minneapolis. Watched armed agents pulling people out of cars, using chokeholds, demanding proof of citizenship. Masked agents in unmarked vehicles grabbing neighbors off the streets, using tear gas and pepper spray, shooting innocent people exercising their First Amendment rights to protest.
This time it isn’t Bull Connor and his racist goons. It’s Donald Trump, JD Vance, Kristi Noem, Stephen Miller, and their fascist goons. It’s armed agents of the president of the United States who are bullying and brutalizing people. Committing a cold-blooded murder of a middle-class white woman in broad daylight who tried to get out of their way. Shooting and injuring others.
This time it’s Trump and the thugs around him making up stories to justify this brutality, lying about the protester’s motives, and threatening even more brutality.
Take a wider look and you see their lawless bullying on a different scale: a criminal investigation of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board for failing to lower interest rates as fast as Trump wants. Criminal investigations of U.S. senators and representatives for telling America’s soldiers that they don’t have to follow illegal orders. Criminal investigations of the governor of Minnesota and mayor of Minneapolis for refusing to cooperate with Trump’s brown shirts.
The Justice Department searching the home of a Washington Post reporter and seizing her laptops and other devices.
Trump raising tariffs on our trusted allies — until and unless they support him in taking over Greenland. Greenland!
A crazy old man saying “fuck you, fuck you” and giving the finger to an American factory worker who criticizes him in public. The crazy old man is president of the United States, and the worker has been suspended from his job because he dared criticize that crazy old man.
I remember the good trouble that occurred 65 years ago. I believe it’s time for it again. Time for all of us — every one of us — to cause it.
What kind of good trouble?
A huge national demonstration, far larger than anything before. Everyone in the streets.
A giant general strike where we stop purchasing all products for two weeks (stocking up beforehand).
A massive boycott of all businesses sucking up to Trump.
A coordinated effort to get all our employers, our churches and synagogues, our unions, our universities to condemn this madness.
A loud demand that our members of Congress impeach and convict him of his high crimes.
There is no longer any neutral place to stand. Either you’re standing up for democracy, the rule of law, and social justice, or you’re complicit in the fascist mayhem Trump has unleashed.
That, for me, is the lesson of all this.
Trump and his thugs have brought us to this point. They are the Bull Connors of today.
We stand with the people of Minneapolis and with the people of every other town and city where Trump’s thugs are prowling or will prowl, and where people are resisting.
We stand with the citizens of Greenland and Venezuela. With Canadians and Europeans. With every nation now threatened by Trump’s lawless abuses of power.
We stand proudly and sturdily everywhere the bright lights of freedom and truth still shine.
We will overcome the darkness of Trump’s fascism. We reject the hate, the bigotry, the fear, and the murderous lawlessness of his regime. We dedicate ourselves to causing good trouble -- ending this mayhem, and building a new and better America.
What are your thoughts?
FROM OCCUPY DEMOCRATS:
BREAKING: MLK’s daughter Bernice King calls out Trump’s lies in powerful MLK Day speech!
“The recent claim by President Trump that the 1964 Civil Rights Act harmed white Americans is just wrong and it's dangerous. It rewrites history in a way that fuels fear and resentment. My fathers
and so many leaders of the movement, Fred Shuttlesworth, Diane Nass, John Lewis — I can call the role but I won't do it today — did not risk their lives to divide this nation.”
“They did so because America was denying millions basic rights, the right to work, the right to vote, to live where they please, to move through society with dignity. The Civil Rights Act did not give black people special treatment. It made discrimination illegal. The same discrimination you're trying to turn around.”
“It required the law to protect everyone equally. That is democracy.”
Sadly, under Donald Trump’s America, the law only protects rich white men. We’ve been forced to watch in horror as he rolls back all the progress we’ve made as a nation, stoking the flames of racial hatred and dragging us to the dark ages again.
We must look to the lessons of Dr. King as a reminder of the greatness our nation can achieve, and how hard we have to fight to get there.
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