A MESSAGE FROM THE PUBLISHER
By Bobby R. Henry, Sr.
There comes a time when silence is no longer patience.
There comes a time when compromise begins to look too much like surrender.
And there comes a time when people who have been pushed, divided, labeled, ignored, and taken for granted must stand up and say what the great civil rights warrior Fannie Lou Hamer told America more than half a century ago:
“I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Well, I believe we have reached that moment again.
And this time, I’ll add something to Sister Hamer’s declaration:
We ain’t gonna take it no more.
People, I want you to hear me, hear me well, and understand the seriousness of this moment. What we do over the next few months may determine how some of us live for the rest of our lives and what kind of America we leave for our children and grandchildren.
This is bigger than one election. It is bigger than one candidate. It is bigger than Democrats and Republicans. And it certainly is bigger than what happened in Florida’s primary elections.
This is about the direction of the United States of America.
We cannot afford to allow any person, political party, movement, or powerful group to convince us that our voices do not matter or that our votes do not count.
We cannot sit quietly while voting districts are manipulated, voting rights are challenged, history is rewritten and communities are divided into political camps designed to make us suspicious of one another.
And we must stop allowing political labels to do our thinking for us.
“Socialist.” “Communist.” “Radical.” “Woke.” “Un-American.” “Leftist.” “Right-wing extremist.”
Before accepting any label placed on a candidate, organization or community, ask three simple questions:
Who is doing the labeling? Why are they doing it? And what do they gain if I believe them?
Because labels can become weapons.
If somebody can convince you to fear a person before you ever listen to what that person believes, they don’t have to win the argument. They have already manipulated the conversation.
Don’t Let Them Divide Us
We also cannot allow ourselves to be hoodwinked into believing that entire groups of people are our enemies.
Every Jewish person does not think alike. Every Hispanic person does not think alike. Every Black person certainly does not think alike. Every LGBTQ+ person does not think alike. Every Democrat does not think alike. Every Republican does not think alike.
America is far more complicated than the boxes politicians and social media algorithms try to put us into.
There are people from every race, religion, generation, political party, and walk of life who still believe in voting rights, equal opportunity, justice, fairness, and human dignity.
Those are the people we need to find.
We don’t have to agree on everything to recognize when something fundamental is at stake.
Because make no mistake about it: we are in a political war over what kind of country America intends to become.
And almost everything around us has become political our schools, our books, our history, our voting districts, our courts, our universities, our newspapers and even the names we choose to honor.
Consider the reports surrounding the Navy’s planned aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller.
Doris “Dorie” Miller was a Black sailor who became a hero at Pearl Harbor. At a time when segregation limited the jobs Black sailors could perform, Miller manned a machine gun during the Japanese attack and helped wounded sailors. He became the first Black American awarded the Navy Cross.
The decision to name an aircraft carrier for him carried meaning far beyond the hull of a ship.
It said that a Black man who served his country when his country did not fully recognize his humanity was nevertheless worthy of one of the nation’s highest honors.
So when we hear reports that his name could be removed from that carrier and replaced with the name of President Donald Trump, we should not simply argue about Trump.
We should ask what the action itself says about the tenor and atmosphere of our country.
What are we honoring? What are we diminishing?
Whose history is considered permanent and whose history can be erased?
Those questions matter.
Watch What They Do
I don’t want to paint a doom-and-gloom picture.
I am not Chicken Little running through the streets screaming that the sky is falling.
But neither will I close my eyes while somebody is taking pieces out of the foundation.
We must stop listening only to what politicians say and start watching what they do.
Watch the legislation. Watch the budgets. Watch the appointments. Watch the courts. Watch what happens to voting rights. Watch what happens to education. Watch what books disappear from classrooms. Watch how congressional and legislative districts are drawn. Watch who gets government contracts. Watch who receives opportunities. Watch who gets erased from history.
And then vote accordingly.
Our ancestors didn’t march so we could stay home.
They didn’t face dogs and fire hoses so we could decide that politics is too messy.
They didn’t risk their jobs, homes and lives registering Black people to vote so generations later we could surrender that power because we didn’t fall in love with a candidate.
The ballot was never supposed to be a love letter.
It is an instrument of power.
Use it.
Sick and Tired — But Not Defeated
Being sick and tired cannot mean becoming hopeless.
Fannie Lou Hamer wasn’t talking about surrender.
She was talking about reaching the point where suffering had to become action.
That is where we must be today.
We must organize. We must educate ourselves. We must challenge misinformation. We must support independent Black media. We must talk to our children and grandchildren. We must question candidates. We must demand accountability from those already in office.
And above all, we must vote.
Not simply because somebody tells us which party is right.
Vote because you have studied the issues. Vote because you understand what is at stake. Vote because generations before us fought for a right that some people still appear determined to weaken. Vote because our lives depend upon on it
And then stay engaged after Election Day.
America does not need another frightened, divided population shouting at one another across political barricades.
America needs people of conscience willing to stand together and declare that democracy belongs to all of us.
So to our Jewish brothers and sisters, our Hispanic brothers and sisters, our LGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, our white brothers and sisters, our Black brothers and sisters, our young people, our elders, independents, Democrats, Republicans and everybody who still believes that America should live up to its promise:
Join us.
We are not asking you to agree with us on everything.
We are asking you to stand with us on something fundamental:
Every American deserves a voice. Every American deserves dignity. Every American deserves equal protection. And nobody’s history should have to disappear for somebody else’s history to matter.
The time has come to speak louder. The time has come to organize stronger. The time has come to vote in numbers that cannot be ignored.
In the immortal spirit of Fannie Lou Hamer:
We are sick and tired of being sick and tired.
And in the spirit of every generation that refused to surrender its dignity:
We ain’t gonna take it no more.
The question now is not whether America is listening.
The question is: What are we prepared to do about it?
