We Dissent

“Today’s Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish.” – The Late United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall 

“This majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the presidency and for our democracy. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” – United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor

“If the structural consequences of today’s paradigm shift mark a step in the wrong direction, then the practical consequences are a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our government.” – United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson 

The Constitution should and must be amended when it is urgent and necessary to ensure its core — freedom and liberty for all. It is a bold body of work that has evolved to protect and honor basic and inalienable principles of justice and fairness in our society in the most integral ways.

We must reject any efforts to dismantle the progress so many persevered against the storms of bigotry, violence, and death to achieve.

We reserve the right to lament the threats to our Constitution, community, and the sanctity of life of every citizen.

We must also persevere with steadfast hope and determination to remain on the trajectory of progress that will not be rescinded — no matter the laws enacted, no matter the unloving rhetoric, and no matter the chorus of hate that resounds.

Our voices will resound stronger, louder, and unbroken in unison and Beloved Community. Our foreparents faced setbacks and obstacles. Still, they rose to the occasion for us and generations yet born. We will carry that spirited fire because it is perpetual and vibrantly inextinguishable through the persistence of our prayers, our protests, and our policies. 

Our votes are not solely a reprimand for injustice. Our votes are also acts of remembrance of the “stony roads trotted and the bitter chastening rods felt in the days when hope unborn had died.”

The future and hope of democracy are at stake alongside the protection of our freedoms, rights, and very lives! Hope unborn will not die on our watch. Let us march on — we must march on until victory is won! 

Healing as One,

Rev. Dr. Waltrina N. Middleton
Executive Director

And the staff of Community Renewal Society

FOR FURTHER REFLECTION

Read Trump v. United States
Read City of Grants Pass v. Johnson     Read The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro by Frederick Douglass
Read Freedom Is a Constant Struggle