What do you do when things are closing in on you individually? What do you do when things are closing in on your family? What do you do when things are closing in on your people?

I feel like things are closing in on our people. When I communicate with others I find that many share this same feeling. If it was just me or my family at risk, then my response would be by me individually or by my family at most. But when our people are at risk, the response cannot be individual: it must be a response of the people. What do we do?

I don’t know about you, but I call for people to come together. I call for people to talk together. I call for people to work together. I call for people to turn to each other rather than turning on each other. What do we do when everything seems to be closing in on our people?

I don’t know the answers to the questions raised. I don’t know the correct responses to the challenges facing us. I don’t know a lot of things but I am convinced that the people know. I don’t know what responses this moment requires. Is it increased voter participation? Is it non-violent protests? Is it community organizing? Is it media relations campaigns? Is it working with people across Alabama? Is it calling upon people outside Alabama to join us in struggle? Is it some approach that we have not yet conceived or applied if conceived? Or is it some combination of all these and more? I don’t know but when we gather together to protect, shelter and share with one another, we will know.

That’s why some of us are calling for a summit so we can share our hopes and fears; our questions and answers; our information and formations.

Who are our people? I don’t know their names but I do know they are Black and White, Hispanic and Native American; young and old; poor and not so poor; jobless and job holders; hopeless and hopeful. What do we do when things are closing in on us as a people? We gather together: in hope and determination; in what we use to do and what we need to do now; in the tried and true and the never tried; in yearning and fulfillment. We Summit!