Unite America is a movement of Democrats, Republicans, and independents who are committed to bridging the growing partisan divide in order to tackle our largest challenges and leave a better country for future generations. Our mission is to pass reforms that will unrig our broken political system and elect candidates who will put country over party. Our "Fulcrum Strategy" is focused on empowering bipartisan caucuses in narrowly divided legislatures, like the US Senate, where they can use their enormous leverage to forge common ground solutions.
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Civil Rights Ldr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking into mike after being released fr. prison for leading boycott.
(Photo by Donald Uhrbrock/Getty Images)
King's Birmingham Jail Letter in Our Digital Times
Jan 20, 2025
Sixty-two years after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s pen touches paper in a Birmingham jail cell, I contemplate the walls that still divide us. Walls constructed in concrete to enclose Alabama jails, but in Silicon Valley, designed code, algorithms, and newsfeeds. King's legacy and prophetic words from that jail cell pierce our digital age with renewed urgency.
The words of that infamous letter burned with holy discontent – not just anger at injustice, but a more profound spiritual yearning for a beloved community. Witnessing our social fabric fray in digital spaces, I, too, feel that same holy discontent in my spirit. King wrote to white clergymen who called his methods "unwise and untimely." When I scroll through my social media feeds, I see modern versions of King's "white moderate" – those who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of truth. These are the people who click "like" on posts about racial harmony while scrolling past videos of police brutality. They share MLK quotes about dreams while sleeping through our contemporary nightmares.
Then and now, the church often stands guilty of what King called "shallow understanding from people of goodwill." In 1963, it was the clergy who counseled patience while Black bodies bore the weight of segregation. Too many religious leaders preach digital decorum, yet our social platforms burn with hatred, conspiracy, and tribal warfare. Replacing Bull Connor's dogs with content moderators, lunch counter segregation with filtered feeds, and water hoses with mute buttons and 180-day account suspension (ask me how I know).
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James Baldwin's searing question comes to mind – "Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?" – takes on new meaning in our digital age. The virtual public square has become its kind of burning house, where truth smolders beneath the ashes of misinformation and AI-generated falsehoods. As a theologian and pastor, I ask: What does seeking a beloved community in digital spaces designed for division mean? How do we practice digital integration when our very platforms are built on the foundation of segregated realities?
The present composition of the digital square reveals this as truth. When conspiracy theories about election fraud spread unchecked through church WhatsApp groups, when Sunday school Facebook pages become breeding grounds for political polarization, and when Twitter threads about Scripture devolve into tribal warfare, we witness a troubling reality. A reality where we have made peace with our divisions.
The letter from Birmingham jail prefaces how our digital wilderness mirrors the spiritual wilderness he described. King expressed grave disappointment in the church's failure to live to its authentic call. Contemporary religious institutions often function more like digital thermometers rather than thermostats regulating or changing our polarized culture. Yet there is hope.
Just as King saw the potential for redemption in the church of his day, I see possibilities for redemption. King called on "creative extremism" – not the extremism of hatred or division, but the extreme love that refuses to accept the comfortable constraints of our digital cages. This creative extremism might involve religious leaders intentionally building digital and physical spaces for genuine dialogue across differences. It might also involve spiritual disciples employing their social media presence as a ministry of reconciliation rather than a platform for sacrilegious and non-democratic proclamations. Also, it necessitates each of us to become digital architects of a beloved community, deliberately curating spaces where truth and grace can meet.
Dr. King, I believe, wrote his letter not just to critique but to call forth. Believing in the possibility of transformation – not just of laws and systems, but of hearts and minds. In our digital age, we need that same prophetic imagination. The walls of our digital cells are high, but they are not impenetrable. I wonder if we will dare to break them down, brick by binary brick, and build something better in their place.
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"Stone of Hope" statue, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Sunday, January 19, 2014.
(Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself
Jan 20, 2025
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s familiar words, inscribed on his monument in Washington, D.C., now raise the question: Is that true?
A moral universe must, by its very definition, span both space and time. Yet where is the justice for the thousands upon thousands of innocent lives lost over the past year — whether from violence between Ukraine and Russia, or toward Israelis or Palestinians, or in West Darfur? Where is the justice for the hundreds of thousands of “disappeared” in Mexico, Syria, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the world? Where is the justice for the billions of people today increasingly bearing the brunt of climate change, suffering from the longstanding polluting practices of other communities or other countries? Is the “arc” bending the wrong way?
It can be tempting to surrender hope, given the enormity of the world’s grief. In contrast to such despair, MLK’s notion of justice was grounded in his religious faith. This understanding of justice grows out of the simple, unyielding conviction that, in the end, good triumphs over evil — right overcomes wrong. But this is not mere wishful thinking, blind to the darker elements of human history and human nature. It instead expresses a vision beyond our current sight.
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This faith-based hope provides a perspective beyond a single lifetime, and it is what empowered MLK to continue his fight even when he knew his days might be numbered — even as he became aware of threats against his life. In his final speech — given at a 1968 sanitation workers’ strike the night before he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn. — MLK prophetically proclaimed, “I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land!”
MLK’s courage in continuing to make public appearances demonstrates that his hope for justice was not grounded in simplistic optimism or a naive sense of inevitability; it was grounded in personal responsibility. MLK’s lesson is clear: The arc of the moral universe bends not from gravity but from the gravitas of our collective struggle to improve our communities, our society, and our world. The arc of the moral universe does not passively bend; it is actively bent. We bend it.
In many ways, we have been bending it. By transforming from a nation with entrenched slavery and complete racial subjugation into one with more freedom (albeit still with major challenges), we have been bending it. By transforming globally from a fractious population that killed tens of millions in world wars into an international community with more sustained stretches without global conflict (albeit again with major challenges), we have been bending it. In viewing the arc beyond our lifetime — in looking across the lengthy span of generations or even centuries — we continue to bend it.
So, as we commemorate Martin Luther King Day—along with a very polarizing Presidential Inauguration Day—let us remain vigilant and hopeful. Let us borrow from MLK’s conviction and courage, as many of us fight to find our own. And let us all remember, especially with the crushing weight of today’s mounting tragedies, that the arc of the moral universe is long — much longer than our lifetime — yet so must be our collective continued commitment to bending this arc toward justice.
This is an adapted version of the author's article that first appeared in the Boston Globe on January 14, 2024.
Dr. Chika O. Okafor (@chikaokafor.bsky.social) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a 2023-24 Radcliffe Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, and the CEO and Founder of Todaydream. Previously, he served as a researcher with the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University.
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American Religious and Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) addresses the crowd on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, Washington DC, August 28, 1963.
(Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)
A Republic, if we can keep it
Jan 19, 2025
Part XXXIV: An Open Letter to President Trump from the American People
Dear President Trump,
You know, we speak the truth when we say that politics is all about messaging. Your campaign message—about a “limping economy” and a “permeable border”—resonated with the electorate. Vice President Harris’ about “to-do lists” and “enemies lists” did not. Your message about “America First” was triumphant; Harris’ about the supposed threat to democracy? Less so.
And that is why your message today—on Inauguration Day—is so crucial to the future of this country we love.
Today marks the third time in history that Inauguration Day intersects with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the national holiday commemorating the incomparable life of America’s civil rights paragon. The first time it occurred was in 1997 when President Bill Clinton was sworn in to begin his second term. Sixteen years later, President Obama took the oath on that same celebrated holiday.
Both presidents chose to honor Reverend King in their own unique style. President Clinton looked out onto the Lincoln Memorial and echoed King’s famous oration. “Thirty-four years ago,” Clinton declared, “the man whose life we celebrate today spoke to us down there at the other end of this Mall in words that moved the conscience of a nation. Like a prophet of old, he told of his dream that one day America would rise up and treat all its citizens as equals before the law and in the heart.” Moving words, to be sure.
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President Obama likewise stirred a nation by reciting the oath with his left hand firmly planted on two Bibles, Abraham Lincoln’s and Martin Luther King Jr.’s. That message was obvious. America’s first Black President deliberately and humbly channeled America’s two greatest guardians of racial equality.
President Trump, you have a unique opportunity on this day. Inaugurations are momentous occasions, ones where each and every presidential move is closely scrutinized and carefully analyzed. The occasion to deliver a resonate message inspired by Dr. King will not so fittingly come again.
Perhaps you could make some nod to Dr. King in your inaugural address. You could invoke America’s Gandhi on the theme of injustice: “injustice anywhere,” King believed, “is a threat to justice everywhere.” Or you might summon Dr. King on the topic of peace: “true peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” Or how about the issue of privilege and power? “I am not interested in power for power’s sake,” the civil rights leader intoned, “but I’m interested in power that is moral, that is right, and that is good.” Or perhaps you just want to keep it simple. Among the most modest and powerful words ever spoken by an American came from the lips of Dr. King: “we cannot walk alone,” he said when faced with the uphill climb to a racially pure nation.
At the very least, though, we think you must acknowledge King’s importance to America’s struggle over inequality. Somehow. You must. Please.
At a time when race relations are at a twenty-first century low, all of us should recognize that the desire for the elevated equality imagined by Reverend King has yet to be realized, that discrimination—both informal and formal—still persists. Your voice is louder than ours; indeed, it is louder than almost any across the globe. We beseech you to use it on this day to remind all of Dr. King’s legacy, his sacrifices, his greatness.
While issuing Proclamation 5927 five years after he signed into law legislation declaring the national holiday, President Reagan described the civil rights warrior in extraordinarily poignant language. Martin Luther King Jr., Reagan remarked, was a “drum major for justice,” someone who taught us with “unflinching determination,” who had “complete confidence in the redeeming power of love,” and whose “utter willingness to suffer, to sacrifice, and to serve” shall forever inspire a nation. It’s time to echo the 40th president.
And the 42nd. “Martin Luther King’s dream was the American dream,” President Clinton concluded in his 1997 inaugural address. Truer words have never been spoken. We implore you, Mr. President, to reaffirm that deeply profound message. For all of us.
Godspeed, Mr. President.
The American People
Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.”
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Build a Software Development Team to Running Your Business Growth. Software Engineers on the project discuss a database design workflow and technical issues in a tech business office.
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Trump Must Take Proactive Approach to AI and Jobs
Jan 19, 2025
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly disrupting America’s job market. Within the next decade, positions such as administrative assistants, cashiers, postal clerks, and data entry workers could be fully automated. Although the World Economic Forum expects a net increase of 78 million jobs, significant policy efforts will be required to support millions of displaced workers. The Trump administration should craft a comprehensive plan to tackle AI-driven job losses and ensure a fair transition for all.
As AI is expected to reshape nearly 40% of workers’ skills over the next five years, investing in workforce development is crucial. To be proactive, the administration should establish partnerships to provide subsidized retraining programs in high-demand fields like cybersecurity, healthcare, and renewable energy. Providing tax incentives for companies that implement in-house reskilling initiatives could further accelerate this transition.
To ensure inclusivity, community technology centers and libraries equipped with online courses could be deployed in rural and underserved areas, helping workers across the country adapt to the evolving economy.
AI disproportionately affects regions reliant on clerical and manufacturing jobs, exacerbating local economic hardships. Establishing “economic diversification zones” in these communities—offering tax breaks, grants, and infrastructure investments—would attract growth-oriented industries such as advanced manufacturing, green energy, and technology startups, fostering broader economic resilience.
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Rural areas, however, face a bigger challenge: they are among the least served by technology infrastructure, including high-speed internet. This digital divide limits access to the tools and resources necessary to participate in emerging AI-driven industries, putting these communities at risk of being left further behind. Many of these areas form the backbone of the Trump administration’s voter base, making their inclusion in the AI economy both an economic imperative and a political necessity. Without targeted investments to bridge this gap, rural regions may miss out on the opportunities AI could bring, compounding existing economic disparities.
Displaced workers often face unemployment and financial instability. Expanding benefits to include income-based retraining and extending coverage duration would offer essential relief. Decoupling healthcare from employment could also reduce stress and uncertainty. Meanwhile, portable benefits—allowing retirement and healthcare coverage to follow workers across jobs—would mitigate career-transition risks and bolster economic resilience.
Employers in emerging industries often struggle to fill vacancies despite high unemployment in declining sectors. The Trump administration must facilitate partnerships between educational institutions, labor unions, and employers to align training programs with industry needs. Apprenticeships and internships in fields like AI and machine learning could provide workers with on-the-job experience.
Micro-credentialing programs—short, specialized training modules—would allow displaced workers to transition into new roles without requiring full degrees, ensuring a faster and more efficient shift to growing industries.
Barriers such as inadequate childcare, eldercare, and inflexible work arrangements disproportionately affect women and low-income families. Subsidizing childcare and eldercare could enable more individuals to pursue retraining and employment. Encouraging remote work and flexible scheduling would expand opportunities for workers in rural areas and those with caregiving responsibilities.
The integration of AI and automation into the workforce represents both a challenge and an opportunity. By investing in retraining programs, economic diversification, and robust social safety nets, the Trump administration could empower workers to navigate this transformative period.
However, given the administration's policy direction, which deprioritizes investments in social safety nets, workforce retraining, and regional economic development, it is unlikely that these comprehensive changes will be pursued. Without a significant shift in priorities, many of the most vulnerable workers will face the full brunt of automation-driven job losses without sufficient support. This stark reality underscores the urgent need for a forward-looking strategy to address these issues head-on. Ironically, this burden will fall most heavily on the administration's strongest source of support—rural communities and blue-collar workers—further deepening the challenges they face.
Robert Cropf is a professor of political science at Saint Louis University.
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