For the past four years, Dr. M. Toni McComb along with Martin Luther King Jr. Family Services has hosted a reading of Frederick Douglass’ speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July”. The speech, originally orated in 1852 in Rochester NY, still holds significant value today.

Black August is more than a month—it is a solemn commemoration, a historical reckoning, and a spiritual call to action. Originating in the 1970s within the California prison system, Black August honors the lives and sacrifices of Black political prisoners, freedom fighters, and the countless individuals who have resisted systemic oppression in the struggle for…

Many are familiar with the poem by Pastor Martin Niemoller that begins with “First they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out. Because I was not a Communist.” (emphasis added) That poem has been on my mind frequently since President Trump took office for the second time in January, especially in relation…