MLK Jr.’s Legacy and Virginia’s First Black Speaker

Today, we celebrate one of the greatest people in American history: Martin Luther King Jr.

I’m sure I don’t need to sing his praises for you; even the immensely flawed American public school system correctly identifies him as a great man and one of the most important and influential people in our history.

MLK’s life helped shape and define not just the civil rights movement but also the American left writ broad. His ethos and political philosophy extended to struggles beyond just Black liberation; he was a staunch and outspoken anti-war advocate and a champion of leftist political ideals that we are still striving for.

Today, I want to acknowledge his legacy by shouting out newly appointed Leader Don Scott, the first Black speaker in the history of Virginia’s legislature.

This is a remarkable achievement, and I take great pleasure in writing this from the former capital of the Confederacy, laughing at the idea of those bastards rolling in their graves.

Unfortunately, we must reckon with the reality that this feat comes more than 60 years after MLK gave his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, and that is without acknowledging the hundreds of years of bondage and mistreatment that preceded the civil rights movement.

But, you know what, I’m usually a cynical bastard, and just for one day, I want to celebrate the wins.

Del. Scott is not only the first Black speaker of the VA legislature but also a former felon. I highlight this not to harp on past mistakes but rather to reiterate the importance of second chances. Del. Scott is, by all accounts, an upstanding and compassionate man. He is a reminder that past mistakes do not define a person.

I will take a quick tangent here to acknowledge the flaws in the legal system that Leader Scott himself has brought up. Leader Scott spent nearly eight years in prison for a drug charge in college–one mistake, and a tenth of his life was gone.

I can’t help but wonder what that charge would have looked like if it was me who was caught.

I’ve done my fair share of… let’s call it experimentation. I know people who were caught with Schedule 1 drugs on their person and in their system, and I can tell you that they did *not* serve eight years in federal prison. I can also tell you that they were white. Now, this was a different state, so it isn’t necessarily directly applicable, but it bears repeating, I think.

Virginia is one of two states where a felony charge can permanently revoke your voting rights. There is another world where Leader Scott never got the chance to recover from a mistake (and that’s without getting into my personal feelings as to whether college experimentation should be called a “mistake” at all) because of the injustices in our legal system that MLK was talking about more than 60 years ago.

But that’s not the case. Instead, we have the privilege of being led by a brilliant, compassionate, trail-blazing man, and we are better for it. So today, in honor of MLK’s legacy, let me say again: congratulations Leader Scott. I’m sorry it took 60 years, but I am more than happy to have you now.