In the mid-1960s, I joined the freedom movement in the South as a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Georgia, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Those were heady years, and I am proud of my small role in the great achievements of that time.

Our movement breathed new life into American democracy, inspiring and teaching people who led many of the other liberation movements of the 1960s and ‘70s. It opened up schools, education, jobs, public accommodations, voting power, electoral office, and judgeships to people of color in the South and throughout the country.

But there is also a fight for history. Those who rule our society have a miserly notion of democracy, and they have re-told the story of our movement, to try to make it fit into the way they want most people to act—as passive observers of government and society, who do nothing other than vote every few years.

The distorted history they tell of the civil rights movement fits into that stingy vision. Their version of our history says that the movement was about a handful of great leaders, like Dr. Martin Luther King, and their followers.

Dr. King would have recognized the urgency of this moment, as the Trump regime seeks to reverse the gains of the past and to eviscerate American constitutional democracy. And he would have been proud of those who stand up.

Dr. King was an extraordinary leader—a moral giant, a radical thinker, a gifted tactician, a great teacher of the power of nonviolence, and one of the most eloquent and inspiring speakers in American history. His memory and his teachings remain a threat to those who seek to empower white supremacy and debase our democracy, which is why MAGA denigrates Dr. King and tries to obscure his teachings.

But a giant part of King’s leadership was inspiring others to be leaders. The freedom movement was about thousands upon thousands of leaders, all across America, sometimes acting in planned ways, sometimes acting spontaneously.

The movement was about millions of people who took to the streets, courthouses, and schools, who were........

© Common Dreams