To the Editor:
On Saturday, April 11, 2026, we attended an open discussion on how to advocate for freedom and justice with Bea Hines and Marvin Dunn, long-term civil rights activists and authors.
Organized by Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, We The People of 305, and the Woman’s Club of Coconut Grove, it was well attended. Mayor Eileen Higgins briefly spoke about fighting the politics of hate.
We got a living lesson of how political apathy has always been the enemy of change.
We need mass protests again now. We are bombarded daily with horrific news. We see $2 billion per day squandered on wars that are not authorized by Congress. The war burns through $50 billion monthly while we are told we can’t afford health care, food assistance and must close local hospitals.
We make it worse by giving massive tax breaks to the richest amongst us while we crush the lower and middle classes with high tariff-induced inflation that the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional. Our National Debt is now over $39 trillion, threatening our future, but we can afford this war?
Justice looks like it is for sale if you can afford it. We have a Governor who routinely celebrates and cruelly laughs about creating Alligator Alcatraz, where you can be jailed with no due process. He champions mid-year gerrymandering to disenfranchise voters, threatens to expel protesting students and outlaws rainbow crossings.
Bea Hines and Marvin Dunn reminded those of us who grew up in an era of Jim Crow segregation, with all-white schools and water fountains, buses and restaurants, that peaceful and persistent protests work. We marched by the millions to end the Vietnam War, forced a corrupt president to resign and demanded legislation to protect our clean air, water and forests.
We are now watching much of that progress disappear. Florida legislates that Black history can’t be taught. We paint over rainbow crosswalks. Our environmental protections are evaporating. Diversity, which has made us, a nation founded by immigrants, the envy of the world, is now a bad word.
The room was filled with older folks who lived through the turbulent 1960’s. We know protesting works, but we also know numbers count and it takes time.
While there was a decent turnout, we needed standing room. We needed that church filled with young voters and kids, ready to learn from past successes.
On a local scale, it is easy to forget how hundreds of us fought the illegal gerrymandering of Coconut Grove several years ago but won in the courts thanks to GRACE and the ACLU lawsuits. We pushed corrupt politicians and city staff out. We elected our ‘first ever’ female mayor. We lose many battles, but win some others.
As stated as far back as 1853, by abolitionist Theodore Parker, “The arc of history bends toward justice.”
But that arc needs bending. It doesn’t swing that way without pressure.
It is time for all of us, regardless of political party or age, to link arms once again and fight with the same peaceful strength and resolve shown by those who came before us and are still with us.
Thank you for the forum and the speakers. They reminded us of what it takes to stand up to the politics of hate, and how to win.
John and Debbie Dolson
Coconut Grove
