Civil rights icon U.S. Rep. John Lewis, who died Friday of pancreatic cancer, spent his life advocating for equal access to the ballot for all Americans. To honor him, we must guarantee – and take part in – a participatory democracy.

What does this year’s Fourth of July mean to Black America? The same question was asked July 5, 1852, by Frederick Douglass in his speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” He referred to an “immeasurable distance” between black and white America still revealed in every metric in society.

Boston Pride just included two programs aimed at LGBTQ people of color – Black Pride and Latinx Pride. But more must be done. These communities will not hold their breath, though, especially the black trans community.

Trans activism, though not addressed enough, has taken place in both Catholic and Protestant churches and synagogues statewide, and one message they can share is that there are trans-affirming stories in the Bible.

Our devouring of dystopian books such as “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a search for answers to a frightening new normal – and so is the steady stream of queries about the afterlife coming ministers’ way in the era of President Donald Trump.

America’s need to showcase her nativist spirit of patriotism comes this year with more hypocrisy and inhumanity, contrasting with the denial of fundamental freedoms and protections to various disenfranchised, vulnerable and historically marginalized populations.

Today’s 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination is a searing reminder of unaddressed gun violence in America. The generations of children in a safer, healthier America that MLK dreamed of now live in fear of guns – when they are not running from them.

Critiques about Ava Duvernay’s $100 million interpretation of Madeleine L’Engle’s classic “A Wrinkle in Time” are not unwarranted. What is unjustified are the racist critiques about using a black actor to depict the universal themes of the messiness and uncertainty of girlhood. 

With this year being the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, commemorations honoring the man will be taking place across the country. Who would think this is the time for a Super Bowl ad to use a King voice-over to sell pickup trucks?

Black women voters in the recent Alabama U.S. Senate race are being thanked for “saving” the state from Republican candidate Roy Moore. We’re being lauded as “the backbone” of the Democratic Party. We take no pleasure in being anyone’s backbone but our own.