While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
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When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html

Donald Trump’s 2016 election win may have been propelled by white working-class men, but another key group in that narrowest of victories was white women with college degrees.
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In 2020, however, after four years of tumult, there are signs that Trump has not managed to hang on to that constituency.

“I really failed my fellow American citizens,” said Claudia Luckenbach-Boman. “I’m extremely disappointed in myself, and sometimes I am really afraid to talk about it. If I were to vote again for Donald Trump in 2020, it would be just as much a failure as an American, but also a failure as a human being.”

Luckenbach-Boman was a 19-year-old college student in November 2016. From a Republican-voting family, she cast her ballot for Trump in Wisconsin, a swing state which he won by just 22,748 votes. Voting for her first time, Luckenbach-Boman said she believed Trump, as a political outsider, was the change the US needed. She quickly changed her mind.

“It was just a few months into his presidency that I realized the biggest mistake I could have made as an American citizen was not informing myself,” Luckenbach-Boman said.
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She will vote for Biden in Michigan – another key swing state Trump narrowly won in 2016 – and harbors hopes of one day running for elected office.

Luckenbach-Boman is not alone. Polling shows Biden ahead of Trump by an average of 6.4% in Wisconsin, and 8.4% in Michigan. The swing isn’t just down to white women with college degrees, but their switch has hurt Trump’s chances.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/29/women-who-voted-trump-who-regret-decision?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

An armed Black Lives Matter protester confronted a car that drove toward a march. The driver fatally shot him.

The protesters were crossing Fourth Street on Congress Avenue in downtown Austin on Saturday night when a motorist sped toward the crowd and laid on the horn. Most of the Black Lives Matter marchers scattered, but not Garrett Foster. The 28-year-old white man wearing a military green T-shirt, baseball cap, black bandanna and an AK-47 type assault rifle strapped across his chest approached the driver’s side window.

Seconds later, the driver fired five shots and sped off, leaving Foster to bleed out.

On Sunday, Austin police said they had interviewed the driver, who had turned himself in after fleeing the scene. The man had a license for his handgun and claimed he fired after Foster pointed his weapon at the car. The police, who declined to identify the driver, released the man as they continue investigating.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/27/garrett-foster-protest-shooting-austin/#click=https://t.co/FYRMFGepuv

Portland’s protests were supposed to be about black lives. Now, they’re white spectacle.

Early in his activism, Malcolm X was asked by a young white woman what she could do to help the cause of civil rights. He famously replied, “Nothing.” Years later, he regretted dismissing her so abruptly, because he came to believe there was much she could do to advance the cause of justice for black people in the United States. But I am quite certain that striking yoga poses nude on the streets of Portland, Ore., was not on his list of actionable items.

Images of “Naked Athena,” as the protester has been labeled, have gone viral, her unclothed confrontation with police earning her accolades as a brave ally of the cause. But I see something else: a beneficiary of white privilege dancing vainly on a stage that was originally created to raise up the voices of my oppressed brothers and sisters. In this, she is not alone. As the demonstrations continue every night in Portland, many people with their own agendas are co-opting, and distracting attention from, what should be our central concern: the Black Lives Matter movement.
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Unfortunately, “spectacle” is now the best way to describe Portland’s protests. Vandalizing government buildings and hurling projectiles at law enforcement draw attention — but how do these actions stop police from killing black people? What are antifa and other leftist agitators achieving for the cause of black equality? The “Wall of Moms,” while perhaps well-intentioned, ends up redirecting attention away from the urgent issue of murdered black bodies. This might ease the consciences of white, affluent women who have previously been silent in the face of black oppression, but it’s fair to ask: Are they really furthering the cause of justice, or is this another example of white co-optation?
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We cannot fall for their deception. We cannot settle for spectacles that endanger us all. This is a moment for serious action — to once again take up the mantle of the civil rights era by summoning the same conviction and determination our forebears did. We welcome our white brothers and sisters in this struggle. In fact, we need them. But I must ask them to remain humbly attuned to the opportunity of this moment — and to reflect on whether any actions they take will truly help establish justice, or whether they are simply for show.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/23/portlands-protests-were-supposed-be-about-black-lives-now-theyre-white-spectacle/#click=https://t.co/Aeytu4K48v

History will show when tyranny came to the streets of America, the 3%, militiamen and gun nuts who like to dress up as GI Joe in tacticool were nowhere to be seen.

But a bunch of moms dressed in yellow with bicycle helmets on stood tall.