In Fact…

In Fact…

OSSIE DAVIS

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OSSIE DAVIS

Politically active actors are not a rarity, but Ossie Davis, who died on February 4, aged 87, towered over most of them. What is truly rare is for art and political conviction to be so powerfully allied in one man. “He made no distinction between his art and his political convictions,” said Jewell Handy Gresham, a friend and editor of The Nation‘s special issue on the black family (July 24, 1989), to which Davis was the sole male contributor. Gresham recalled that Davis’s fiercely devoted wife and longtime acting partner, Ruby Dee, was opposed to his saliency as the lone male. After the issue was nominated for a National Magazine Award, he felt vindicated. “Jewell,” he said, “thanks for helping me show the woman I love we were right.” Davis and Dee, who often co-starred on stage, were co-stars in the civil rights movement since the 1940s, and were emcees at the 1963 March on Washington. Ossie Davis never curtailed his fight for equality out of concern for his career. He was a robust orator and versatile writer, author of the hit play Purlie Victorious, which satirized racial stereotypes. For a 2000 Nation Institute banquet, he wrote, “America is still the Great Unfinished Land, needing more from its lovers than just our death and taxes….” His eloquence won him the assignment of delivering eulogies at many funerals, most famously Malcolm X’s, of whom he said, “He…was our shining black prince” and “in honoring him we honor the best in ourselves.” That could be Davis’s epitaph, says Gresham.

MINORITY/MAJORITY

Barbara Boxer, profiled in this issue, knows what’s needed for Democrats to become the majority party again. Unfortunately, many in the party don’t. Beginning with this issue, every other week David Sirota of the Center for American Progress will single out Democrats whose actions help, and hurt, the cause.

Permanent Minority:

Representative Allen Boyd has the dubious distinction of being the first Democrat to endorse privatizing Social Security. Newly elected Colorado Senator Ken Salazar defended Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s nomination, despite his involvement in the Iraq torture scandals.

Toward the Majority:

Montana Senator Max Baucus, who helped the White House pass its 2001 tax cuts for the rich and its Medicare bill, came out against Social Security privatization, signaling other red-state Democrats to strongly oppose the President’s plan. Most Senate Democrats voted against Gonzales.

We cannot back down

We now confront a second Trump presidency.

There’s not a moment to lose. We must harness our fears, our grief, and yes, our anger, to resist the dangerous policies Donald Trump will unleash on our country. We rededicate ourselves to our role as journalists and writers of principle and conscience.

Today, we also steel ourselves for the fight ahead. It will demand a fearless spirit, an informed mind, wise analysis, and humane resistance. We face the enactment of Project 2025, a far-right supreme court, political authoritarianism, increasing inequality and record homelessness, a looming climate crisis, and conflicts abroad. The Nation will expose and propose, nurture investigative reporting, and stand together as a community to keep hope and possibility alive. The Nation’s work will continue—as it has in good and not-so-good times—to develop alternative ideas and visions, to deepen our mission of truth-telling and deep reporting, and to further solidarity in a nation divided.

Armed with a remarkable 160 years of bold, independent journalism, our mandate today remains the same as when abolitionists first founded The Nation—to uphold the principles of democracy and freedom, serve as a beacon through the darkest days of resistance, and to envision and struggle for a brighter future.

The day is dark, the forces arrayed are tenacious, but as the late Nation editorial board member Toni Morrison wrote “No! This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”

I urge you to stand with The Nation and donate today.

Onwards,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editorial Director and Publisher, The Nation

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