Martin Luther King Jr. was clear in his many orations about the role of nonviolent action in achieving a just cause. “We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension,” he once said. “We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive.” Violence does not yield solutions, according to King, only more destruction.
On this day that commemorates the late civil rights revolutionary, the destruction litters the landscape, the heartbreaking memento of the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack. Five lives were lost in the violence of that day, none of them sacrificed in pursuit of a higher goal.
Instead, America is left with immeasurably more tension than on any past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an occasion usually marked with parades and community volunteer works. King championed civil disobedience, and there was nothing about the behavior on that dark Wednesday at the Capitol that could be described as civil.
His own life ended because of mounting tension over the changes he sought for racial equality. That tension exploded in violent police crackdowns on civil rights protesters and ultimately in King’s assassination in 1968.
In Washington, D.C., speechmaking and protest are always part of the environment. However, those who broke from the march and joined in the sacking of the Capitol were certainly not engaging in the positive, peaceful change King had preached, but its opposite.
But there can be hope in these dark times. The response has been to pull back from the brink, press ahead with affirming an election and move forward. There are armed guards called in to reestablish security so a transition from the Trump to Biden administration can take place, as dictated by the U.S. Constitution, on Jan. 20.
Even in Hawaii, fortifications are in place, closing off the iconically open-air courtyard of the state Capitol. That’s where more protests are anticipated in advance of Joe Biden’s inauguration as the next president on Wednesday, which also is opening day of the state Legislature.
Nothing about this moment can be considered normal, as this transition will proceed in the midst of a pandemic and its economic fallout. The hope is for the success of a plan charting America’s course back to some form of normality.
On Thursday, Biden pledged help for strapped state and local governments providing services, struggling households and businesses, and a vaccination program to vanquish the devastating COVID-19 surges. Whatever the final shape of this needed aid, the unveiling of a blueprint brings some illumination.
But the hope also comes in the installation of new Cabinet officials that brings more of America’s diversity into the front ranks of leadership. Above all, the inauguration of Kamala Harris as the first woman vice president, one of both Black and Asian backgrounds.
No instantaneous or magical transformation happens to society when one of these ceilings is cracked. The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president was met with an spike in white supremacy agitation, according to groups that track domestic terrorism. The Black Lives Matter movement proves how far we have to go.
But having a government that reflects a more diverse 21st-century America, a diversity long familiar to the people of Hawaii, will continue to fuel the march toward the change King wanted. Chipping away at the iceberg of racism that runs so deep has taken many years, but these steps still mark our progress.
This is the true nature of our country now. And that is a real reason for celebration, despite the persistent turmoil that brought us to this point.
