Peace is not a weakness 

By Martin Luther King III

JA Guest Writer

As we step into 2026  –  two hundred and fifty years since the founding of this nation  –  we are invited to pause, to listen, and to remember who we have been called to be.

We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Not as a slogan recited from memory, but as a sacred promise still unfolding. A promise that insists every generation must decide whether those truths will remain words on parchment or become life in our streets, our schools, our policies, and our hearts.

At this turning of the year, we are reminded that peace is not weakness. Peace is strength. It is the courage to choose love over fear, justice over convenience, and unity over the false comfort of division.

Peace is disciplined. Peace is demanding. Peace requires faith.

We worship a God of Love in theory, yet too often in practice we fashion graven images of war, destruction, and separation  – placing our trust in force, dominance, and scarcity rather than in compassion, dignity, and shared humanity. The work before us is to close that gap between what we profess and how we live.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s refusal  – of despair, of cynicism, of moral surrender  –  is the inheritance passed to us.

As we enter this new year and this historic chapter, may we choose audacious faith over exhaustion, moral imagination over fear, and love over despair. May we remember that the arc of history does not bend itself  –  it bends when courageous people place their hands upon it.

May 2026 be a year when truth is spoken with humility, peace is practiced with strength, and love is lived not just as belief, but as action.

WITH ABIDING FAITH IN AMERICA AND AN AUDACIOUS FAITH IN HUMANITY. TOGETHER WE WILL REALIZE THE DREAM.