By Lola Renegade | June 9, 2026

“The ultimate measure of a man (woman) is not where he (she) stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he (she) stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

 — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I watched Trevor Noah Netflix special Joy in the Trenches over the weekend. He posed a question that refuses to vacate my thoughts: Who will you be when history calls? I added “where.”

It is a simple question, yet it may be one of the most important questions any generation can answer. History is not merely a record of people, places, events, presidents, wars, elections, and legislation. History is a record of who stood up, who sat down, who spoke out, and who remained silent. Every generation eventually arrives at a moment when saying and doing nothing becomes impossible.

For people of color in America and our allies, that moment has arrived once again. Under the Trump Administration, hard-fought gains in civil rights, voting rights, diversity initiatives, economic opportunity, and equal protection are under unprecedented attack. The stakes are high and the consequences will be felt for generations. It is long past the time that each of us must decide whether to stand idly by watching and benefitting while others do all the heavy lifting. Or it is time to step up to do your part to help shape history and to deal the final deathblow to injustice in a way that this part will never need to be revisited again.

In 1961, a group of extraordinarily brave Americans – both Black and white, the Freedom Riders, boarded buses bound for the Deep South to challenge segregation and force this nation to confront its lack of conscience. Many were barely out of their teens. Some were college students. Some were clergy. Before departing, many wrote their wills and letters to loved ones, fully aware they might never return home alive.

They faced firebombs, beatings, imprisonment, and the very real possibility of death, not for personal gain, but for the promise of a more just America. They challenged segregated seats on buses, at lunch counters, and helped change the course of history. More than six decades later, the buses are different, but the destination for full equality remains the same.

Many others before us made tremendous sacrifices and answered the call and because of them, many of our lives are better.

History called Harriet Tubman, and she answered by risking her freedom and her life to lead others out of bondage. History called Ida B. Wells, and she answered by exposing the horrors of lynching when much of America preferred ignorance over truth. History called Frederick Douglass, and he answered by standing before a nation celebrating liberty and asking what the Fourth of July meant to millions who remained enslaved. History called Fannie Lou Hamer, and she answered by exposing before the nation the violence and terror inflicted upon Black citizens who dared to exercise their constitutional right to vote. History called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and he answered from a Birmingham jail cell, reminding America that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere and warning that the silence of good people often proves more dangerous than the actions of the openly wicked.

Every generation inherits unfinished work. Today, history is calling once again. It is calling in an era marked by fierce debates over voting rights, education, immigration, access to medical care, judicial power, economic inequality, and the future of democratic institutions. It is calling as election deniers and fake electors continue to seek and win positions of influence. It is calling as public trust in elections has eroded and facts themselves are increasingly filtered through partisan loyalties. It is calling amid debates surrounding Project 2025, presidential immunity, executive power, and the return of Donald Trump to the presidency despite felony convictions that, in previous eras, might have ended a political career. It is calling as participants in the January 6 insurrection are viewed by some as criminals and by others as patriots. It is calling as America wrestles once again with old questions about race, power, citizenship, and whose voices matter in a democracy.

Your children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn will one day ask a question that no amount of wealth, status, influence, or self-justification will be able to avoid: Who were you, where were you, and what did you do when history called? They will not ask how many luxury vehicles, airplanes, and yachts you owned. They will not ask how many formerly colonized countries you visited, how many mansions you purchased, how many designer labels filled your closets, how many concerts or sporting events you attended, how many casinos you visited, how many strip clubs you visited, how many times you attended church as a false witness, how many violent and vulgar video games you played, how many degrading rap lyrics you wrote and produced, how many followers admired your social media accounts, or how many photographs documented your comfort and success. They will not care how much money you spent being entertained while the future of Black freedom and progress was on the line and being written around you.

They will ask where you stood. They will ask whether you defended democracy when democracy was being tested. They will ask whether you defended truth when lies became profitable. They will ask whether you defended the vulnerable when doing so was unpopular. They will ask whether you challenged injustice or accommodated it. They will ask whether you spent your resources merely pursuing comfort, consumption, and entertainment while future generations inherited the consequences of your indifference. They will ask whether you invested in education, justice, opportunity, and freedom or whether you invested only in yourself. They will ask whether your faith transformed communities or merely sustained institutions. They will ask whether you sought proximity to power or whether you spoke truth to power.

I am reminded of a simple truth: I eat fruit from trees I did not plant. I enjoy freedoms secured by sacrifices I did not make. I benefit from struggles, beatings, and deaths that I did not endure. The question before us is whether we will do the same. Will we plant trees from which we may never eat or enjoy their shade? Will we defend freedoms whose full benefits we may never see? Will we invest in a democracy that our children, grandchildren, and generations yet unborn will inherit?

Remember, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglass

Who and where will you be when history calls?

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