Just a few days before the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where John Lewis and hundreds of others were beaten by Alabama State troopers as they demanded voting rights, Mayor Mike Duggan announced his budget proposals to the Detroit City Council. Nearly sixty years have passed since that vivid explosion of police violence, but it seems Mayor Duggan has learned nothing from it.

On Saturday the Detroit Charter Commission voted to advance its newly crafted document to state officials for review. The Commission hopes that, after review, the Charter will be adopted by a vote of the people in August. The document reflects three years of work by the elected commission. They held countless public meetings, offered opportunities for citizen engagement, heard expert testimony, and have worked with city officials and lawyers to meet their responsibilities. 

This week the United States will have lost 500,000 people to the Coronavirus. This is more than all the deaths we experienced in World War I, World War II, and Vietnam, combined. We have endured these losses in 1 year, touching people everywhere. This week we are also witnessing the dimensions of suffering in Texas, and surrounding states. The loss of electricity, combined with extreme cold, has revealed the fragility of our basic infrastructure yet again. People are without heat, food, and water. Hospitals are collapsing. Needed emergency supplies cannot be delivered.

The impeachment trial is over. The outcome was clear before the first words were spoken. In spite of overwhelming evidence of Trump’s responsibility for the Capitol attack, only 7 Republican senators had the courage to acknowledge his guilt. After voting against impeachment, Senator Mitch McConnell felt compelled to try and salvage his position by saying “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”

February 1 is the anniversary of the Greensboro sit-ins. In 1960 four young African American students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, inspired by the actions of Dr. Martin Luther King, decided to do something about segregation. They decided to go to the white only lunch counter at the local Woolworth and order coffee. This simple act sparked some of the most courageous and imaginative organizing in defense of human rights in this country.

Since the attack on the Capitol, many people are acknowledging that mob violence is a part of who we are as a people. Recognition of the violence imbedded in American culture is crucial to changing it. It is also essential in understanding that we are facing accelerating conflicts as the right-wing terrorists are morphing from mobs to military forces.

This year Martin Luther King’s birthday falls the day before the inauguration of Joseph Biden and Kamala Harris. The Capital has been turned into a “green zone.” More than 25,000 National Guard troops are securing the grounds. This is 5 times the number of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is nearly triple the number called out after the assassination of King in 1968. The National Mall, that once held King’s tent city of the Poor Peoples Campaign, is closed. Security forces are on high alert as right-wing extremists plot violent attacks, including efforts to storm state capitals and blocking Biden’s entry to the White House.

The mob that stormed the Capitol this week was as old as America. It climbed the steps carrying the shadows of the lynch mobs that have terrorized people for centuries. It echoed the mobs that ran through towns, attacking black people, killing, and destroying any trace of black lives.