By Dr. Frances Murphy Draper
I was wrong. Not about the dangers of speaking up — I knew early that raising your voice could make you a target. I was wrong to believe that democracy would live up to its promise of protecting every voice, when racism was and is alive and well in the United States of America.
As a child of the civil rights era, I saw what happened to people who resisted. Leaders were jailed. Children were hosed and beaten. Students were dragged from lunch counters — images carried on television and printed in the AFRO that seared themselves into my young mind. Those pictures shaped an early understanding of justice, and they still matter today because the same forces of fear and silencing are at work in 2025.
I remember sitting quietly as my grandfather, Carl J. Murphy, longtime publisher of the AFRO-American Newspapers, spoke about the risks he faced because of his editorials. For 45 years, he used the AFRO’s pages to challenge segregation and demand equality — and for that courage he endured FBI surveillance, harassment and economic pressure designed to silence him.
Our family’s story is not unique. So many parents and grandparents bore the same scars. They faced threats, intimidation, job loss, surveillance, jail and worse simply for demanding freedom. Their experiences remind us that free speech in America has never truly been free, especially for Black voices.
There was hope that democracy itself would provide sturdier guardrails, that over time the country would bend more toward openness rather than retreat into fear. But the events of 2025 — especially the murder of Charlie Kirk and the toxic aftermath — have shown how wrong that hope was.
Instead of grieving a life lost while also interrogating the harm of his rhetoric, Kirk’s death has been weaponized. It has become an excuse to silence those who dare to challenge his polarizing views. Nurses, teachers, journalists, students — people from every walk of life — have been punished simply for saying, “I do not agree.”
The hypocrisy is glaring. “Free speech” is defended for some, while others lose jobs, reputations and platforms for speaking their truth. Even the press — the Fourth Estate, long regarded as democracy’s watchdog — is under unprecedented attack.
And yet, none of this is new.
Colin Kaepernick knelt peacefully during the anthem and was exiled from professional football.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was branded a dangerous agitator before being assassinated for daring to dream aloud.
The Exonerated Five — Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, Kevin Richardson, and Korey Wise — were just 14, 15, and 16 years old when they were wrongfully accused in the infamous Central Park jogger case. As boys, they were silenced and condemned; as men, they were vindicated. But the damage of that stolen youth can never be erased. And in Birmingham, four young girls — Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley — were murdered in their church before they ever had the chance to raise their voices. Their silence was imposed by hatred. Today’s cry to “say their names” reminds us that remembering is resistance, and silence is complicity.
Here is the truth: hate speech and free speech are not the same. Free speech is the lifeblood of democracy. Hate speech is its poison — the words that demean, divide and endanger. But in America, the two are too often confused, protecting the poison while punishing the truth-tellers.
What are we teaching our children when we punish those who speak out against injustice while shielding those who spread division? What are we teaching when we say democracy values every voice, but prove through action that some voices matter less than others?
This is why today’s truth-tellers must be celebrated — journalists, grassroots organizers, young activists, pastors and preachers, and everyday citizens who refuse to be quiet. Young people especially are refusing to stay silent in the face of injustice. Their courage gives hope. They remind us that democracy doesn’t live in monuments or memorials. It lives in the words and actions of ordinary people — often the young — who dare to speak when silence feels safer.
The boldness of prophetic leaders like the Rev. Dr. Jamal Harrison Bryant also deserves celebration, calling this nation to account in ways that stir both conscience and conviction. He stands in a long line of preachers, prophets and organizers who never confused silence with safety.
But courage alone is not enough. This moment demands unity. The Black church, the Black Press, historic civil rights organizations, the Divine Nine Black fraternities and sororities, and all who love truth must reclaim a collective voice. Too many fought too hard for us to scatter now. With one message and one movement, we must again be the conscience of this nation.
What was taught about democracy was wrong. Democracy is not guaranteed. It is not self-sustaining. It does not automatically bend toward justice. It survives only when people — brave, ordinary, determined people — fight to protect it.
Many have been on the battlefield a long time, speaking and sacrificing with power and conviction. Others are raising their words with fresh urgency. Together, we must stand as one. Their courage must become our collective rallying cry.
They kept writing. They kept marching. They kept crusading for justice, in spite of great opposition. They refused to be silent, and so must we. If their witness endured persecution, then ours must endure the present storm. Their courage demands our courage. Their stand demands our stand. And this time, I know I’m right.