Charles L. Howard 8-28-2017

Fifty-four years ago today (Aug. 28), the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared in his baritone voice, which still hangs in the air all these years later, “I have a dream.” A forgotten aspect of King’s witness was his ability to move and bring about change from the “prophetic middle.” The prophetic middle is not about being politically indecisive, indifferent, or even about being a political moderate, as King was none of those. In fact he was far more radical than the domesticated version of his life that is paraded about each January.

Jim Keat 8-28-2017

Take off your shoes.

No, I really mean it. Right now. Stop what you’re doing. Put down your phone, turn away from your computer screen. Loosen your laces, step out of your sandals, and free your feet from wherever they are currently confined.

Shoes off? Ok, now keep reading.

Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground.

Kaitlin Curtice 8-28-2017

Jesus, when you walked on the water,

you beckoned Peter to come out of the boat, unafraid.

The “One Thousand Ministers March for Justice,” expected to proceed Monday from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to the Justice Department, originally was planned to protest increased hate crimes, mass incarceration and discrimination and to call on the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to address those issues.

the Web Editors 8-28-2017

The women and children, fleeing violence in Central America, were asylum seekers and had been cleared to travel to meet families throughout the United States. Many had no money, and spoke no English.

Catastrophic flooding triggered by Tropical Storm Harvey inundated Houston on Sunday, forcing residents of the fourth most populous U.S. city to flee their homes in boats or hunker down in anticipation of more days of "unprecedented" rainfall.

At a time when the far right often cites the inability — or refusal — of Muslims to assimilate, these young volunteers are ready, willing, and able to do what other religious groups in this country have been doing for decades: providing emergency aid, labor, and comfort to people suffering the effects of natural disasters

In his 20s, while a student at the University of Maryland, Aitcheson was charged with making bomb threats, manufacturing pipe bombs, and threatening to kill Coretta Scott King in a letter.

Aitcheson pleaded guilty to several cross burnings, including one in the front yard of an African-American couple in 1977.

“This is a fast-growing humanitarian situation which we have never seen before,” said Benson Okabo, World Vision’s West Nile Refugee Response operations manager. “We are concerned that the donor assistance has been little.”

the Web Editors 8-25-2017

1. Northeast D.C. Gets a New Mural Honoring the Workers Who Built the Lincoln Memorial Statue
The mural features the African-American men who quarried the stones that built to memorial.

2. I’m a Historical Curator. Removing Confederate Statues Isn’t Erasing History.
He works to contextualize a statue of Jefferson Davis at a Southern University. Here, Ben Wright knocks down each of the arguments being made for keeping Confederate statues one by one.