Peter Johnson: The news today reminds me of the 60s and 70s. We’re backsliding on freedoms, bit by bit. That’s how suppression grows.
I am 80 years old and my body still recalls what it means to be beaten for believing in freedom. As a teenager, I worked with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
and participated in protests all over the South. From North Carolina to Texas and Oklahoma, I was beaten with batons and cattle prods, bitten by police dogs, and jailed many times. Those wounds are markers of a truth I wish I could say no longer holds relevance: Democracy in America is always tenuous. When I turn on the TV today, I see images that take me back to the 1960s and 1970s. Politicians enact laws to restrict votes, particularly against Black and brown citizens. Gerrymandering is applauded. Extremists walk the streets with flags of hate to promote their agenda, emboldened, not condemned. And now we have an administration putting troops in our communities to “restore order” — a phrasing I have heard before.I remember when Black history was not part of school curricula. We were told that it didn’t exist. We spent decades working with school districts, colleges and universities to offer African American history classes. Now, that history, those books, all those efforts are being whitewashed and even removed.Many will say it is a stretch to say we are in the ’60s and ’70s again. I wish they were right. If you lived then you remember when asking to vote meant risking your job or your life.History tells us that suppression usually doesn’t start large; it usually begins in one place, and if it gets normalized, it spreads. If federal forces are sent into one community, why not two? Why not three? Why not 10? Each time, it is easier and more normalized. Each instance becomes easier for the government to continue its encroachment into our liberties that are at stake.Governments are not pro-liberty and freedom; they are pro-preservation of order. That is how freedoms erode: little by little, inch by inch, order by order, city by city. I have lived long enough to see great progress. I have seen doors open that were previously locked tight. But I have also lived long enough to know great progress is not permanent. Any right we’ve gained can be lost if we stop protecting it. The Voting Rights Act had blood and death attached to it, and we’ve watched it slowly lose teeth and struggle for survival in recent years. What we see today is just more unraveling. Nevertheless, I refuse to lose hope. I see a generation of young people rising just as we did. They are marching, organizing and demanding a better future. This new generation is leading movements for justice, climate, safety and equality. There is something familiar about them — the determination, bravery and refusal to simply accept “this is just how it is.”To my co-elders, I say we cannot retire from justice. While our bodies weaken, our wisdom is needed now more than ever.To the young, I say, do not lose heart. You are stepping forward with the baton we passed, and we are still here to talk to you, listen to you and walk with you. When I was sitting in jails all across the South, I believed in a better America. And I still believe. But belief alone does not suffice. It takes action and courage to make sure this nation does not revert to its darkest chapters.Peter Johnson has been a civil rights leader in Dallas since 1969. He is a Dallas Morning News contributing columnist. His columns are written with assistance from Don Robinson, executive director of the Peter Johnson Institute for Non-Violence.Live radar: Flash flood warning issued for parts of North Texas. See which cities
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