During the winter season (starting with Halloween), many of the houses in my neighborhood put up holiday lights. During a time when the sun sets early and I’m driving home in the dark, the lights are a bright spot – they never fail to make me smile as I take in the bright beacons illuminating the night and am thankful for my neighbors taking time to hang them. I have been especially thankful for the small moments of reprieve this winter, because so much of the last year (last month, last week, last day) has been heartbreaking.
Certainly I’ve held a range of emotions – rage, devastation, horror, overwhelm, indignation – and at the center is the particular pain of loss and grief, a feeling that is best described as heartbreak, though that word is inadequate.
For the last year since the current president was inaugurated on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, there has been a purposeful onslaught on liberty, equity and the work done over decades to fulfill the nation’s promissory note and cash “a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice” (Dr. King, “I Have A Dream” Speech, 1963). We know that efforts to undermine justice have always been at play (and I’ve often tried to reflect on them in the twenty plus years of reflecting on this holiday). However, I’ll admit that the sheer speed of the administration’s dissent to the blatant, full embrace of white nationalism, alongside the ushering in of fascism without disguise, has felt dizzying. I’ve felt stuck in the darkness, without any beacon of light. As these leaders have revealed their intentions, including disparaging and dismissing Dr. King’s legacy and the Civil Rights Movement1, we are no longer in the space of dog whistles and innuendo. The real goal of “make America great again” – namely white supremacy and an end to democracy – has been laid quite plainly.
Over the past year, it took me a while to realize that underneath the rage at this onslaught was actually heartbreak, both in the big picture sense for my country as well as personally. Like so many people (i.e., scientists, civil servants, medical professional, educators, DEI facilitator colleagues, etc.), it is difficult to admit that for my entire adult life, I thought I was contributing in some small way to building more equitable approaches and systems which are now being dismantled before me. And not just by outside forces, but, even more devastating, from within institutions I trusted as well, seemingly through a mixture of the allure of power, lack of conviction, incompetency, misrepresented values and hubris.
I also must confess to my own hubris. I thought we were bricklayers, building brick by brick, a solid foundation for others to build upon. I forgot that foundations can be demolished as quickly as excavators to the East Wing of the White House.
In my heartbreak and anger, I know that our country has been here before in many different ways. The racism, xenophobia and desires to maintain white supremacist power propelling the current regime are as old as the country. During the Civil Rights Movement, the same tactics were used: “laws” manipulated to maintain status quo, racist hierarchies used as a wedge, demonization of “others” as both un-American and dangerous, hyper-focus on compliance, violence and killing presented as “logical consequences,” and so on2. That also means that the lessons, both value-based and practical, from the Civil Rights Movement are pertinent and instructive today.
So, as I often do in my reflection, I turned to the words of Dr. King himself.
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction (Strength of Love, Chapter 5, 1963).
I know that this is an often used quote from Dr. King and many may think that in our current context, sixty-two years from when he first wrote it, that those words are cliché or unrealistic or naive. I went back and read many of his works, including the sermon that includes this passage. Dr. King articulates how hard it is to be a light in the darkness, love in the hatred and still recognized that, despite the challenges, this approach was the only way through oppression to the path of freedom. Nonviolence was not easy. Love was not weakness. It is hard. It was hard then. It is hard now. Shining the light is formidable when the darkness of hatred is so seductive. Yet Dr. King’s call to the movement was strategic. dangerous. prescient. It is a call that we must continue to answer.
Almost every day I find myself pausing to remember my own values and how I want to show up in the world, because our way through this current reality requires that we remain rooted in love and light. And rather than cliché, there is a reason why the light of candles, fire and other illumination features prominently in many cultures and religions. The power of light has been understood for millennia because we know that light shows us a path through.
You see, I was wrong before. We weren’t builders. We were light keepers all along.
Light helps us focus so that, rather than a weapon, anger is a tool of liberation.
Light is love in the face of hatred.
Light is holding people accountable while holding onto their humanity.
Light is peaceful protest.
Light is illuminating empathy instead of cruelty.
Light is protecting our neighbors.
Light is strength.
LIght is standing up to injustice even if we are afraid.
Light is seeing us in “them.”
Light is sacred in a way that I didn’t truly understand before.
So in this moment, I invite all of us,
From the bottom of our broken hearts to
Strike our matches.
Light our candles.
Join wick to wick and flame to flame.
For we are light keepers,
and it’s a lifelong endeavor.
- By way of example, Trump said that the “civil rights protections that began in the 1960s with the passage of the Civil Rights Act “resulted ultimately in the discrimination against white men.” and that “White people were very badly treated. (The Independent, “Trump blasts civil rights protections and says it resulted in white people being treated ‘very badly’” January 12, 2026) Similarly, J.D. Vance at a speech given at the four-day Turning Point USA conference in December “In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.” (NPR, “Vance refuses to set red lines over bigotry at Turning Point USA’s convention,” December 22, 2025) ↩︎
- There are many excellent sources regarding the tactics of this time, including excellent resources on the Equal Justice Institute’s Website and Howard University School of Law
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bethreflects 