Dear Donald Trump,
It is 3 AM (GMT) this early Saturday Morning, May 30, as I follow developments regarding the nationwide protests currently being staged as a result of the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of your police officers.
Mr. President, certainly the scenes oozing out of downtown Atlanta are quite worrisome as similar scenes evolve across major cities in the United States of America. Truly the land of the free and the home of the brave has not lived up to its bill of rights and liberty as enshrined in the sacred scrolls of the Declaration of Independence.
As I watch protesters attack the CNN Headquarters in Atlanta, I see the anger and frustration of citizens of your great country across the political and racial divide, all clamouring for the justice that is promised in your nation’s philosophical check book.
Alas! What is happening in America right now would be strange only to those who have no knowledge of the prophesies of the late Martin Luther King Junior who (57 years ago) boldly asserted the inconvenient truth as follows:
“When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men (My Lord), would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. (My Lord) Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.”
The Donald, it is your misfortune that today (more than ever before), the African race, is ready and eager to demand justice and equality. It falls within the period of your reign that the sons and daughters of the crowd solemnly assembled at the National Monument on that fateful day in 1963, when MLK made that historic speech, stand ready and bold to demand that your federal reserves of justice honour that promissory note and no force on earth can stop this movement.
You have been eccentric, provocative and down right maliciously egocentric, but this is not the time to attempt any egomaniacal shenanigans. You must rise up to the occasion and answer to the call for justice to be delivered in the matter of George Flyod. Your country yearns for leadership and you have woefully failed to rise to the occasion amidst your government’s shambolic approach to the current the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now, here comes another tragedy on your doorsteps seeking the right mix of legal and sociological answers that would heal and reunite the United States of America. Will you answer to this proverbial 3 A.M phone call that former Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned all presidential aspirant about?
Whatever your answer to the foregoing query may be, you are better off doing some genuine soul-searching and broad-based consultation before you hit your twitter handle.
In parting, Mr. President, I refer you to a warning posted to your office more than half a century ago; that mail was addressed to your your office by no less an illumined soul than the reverend pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, “the price that America must pay for the continued oppression of the Negro and other minority groups is the price of its own destruction. (Yes it is) For the hour is late. And the clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now before it is too late.”
Please accept the assurances of my highest consideration and esteem.
Momodou Sabally
Former Presidential Affairs Minister and International Speaker, Momodou Sabally is a prolific author and President of the youth mentorship foundation, Sabally Leadership Academy (SLA).
