January 18, 2026

January 18th, 2026

You hear sometimes, now that we know the sorted details of the lives of some of our leading

figures, that America has no heroes left.

When I was writing a book about the Wounded Knee Massacre, where heroism was pretty thin

on the ground, I gave that a lot of thought.

And I came to believe that heroism is neither being perfect nor doing something spectacular.

In fact, it's just the opposite.

It's regular, flawed human beings choosing to put others before themselves, even at great

cost, even if no one will ever know, even as they realize the walls might be closing

in around them.

It means sitting down the night before D-Day and writing a letter praising the troops

and taking all the blame for the next day's failure upon yourself, in case things went

wrong, as General Dwight D. Eisenhower did.

It means writing in your diary that you still believe that people are really good at heart,

even while you are hiding in an attic from the men who are soon going to kill you, as

Anne Frank did.

It means signing your name to the bottom of the Declaration of Independence in bold script,

even though you know you were signing your own death warrant should the British capture

you, as John Hancock did.

It means defending your people's right to practice a religion you don't share, even

though you know you are becoming a dangerously visible target, as sitting bold did.

Sometimes it just means sitting down, even when you were told to stand up, as Rosa

Parks did.

None of those people woke up one morning and said to themselves that they were about

to do something heroic.

It's just that when they had to, they did what was right.

On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated

by a white supremacist.

He gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.

Since 1966, King had tried to broaden the civil rights movement for racial equality into

a larger movement for economic justice.

He joined the sanitation workers in Memphis, who were on strike after years of bad pay

and such dangerous conditions that two men had been crushed to death in garbage compactors.

After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say

about heroes.

As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought

about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.

Dr. King told the audience that if God had let him choose any era in which to live, he

would have chosen the one in which he had landed.

Now that's a strange statement to make, King went on because the world is all messed up.

The nation is sick.

Trouble is in the land, confusion all around.

But I know somehow that only when it is dark enough can you see the stars.

Dr. King said that he felt blessed to live in an era when people had finally woken up

and were working together for freedom and economic justice.

He knew he was in danger as he worked for a racially and economically just America.

I don't know what will happen now.

We've got some difficult days ahead, but it doesn't matter because I've been to the

mountaintop.

Like anybody, I would like to live a long life, but I'm not concerned about that now.

I just want to do God's will.

And he's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the

promised land.

I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will

get to the promised land.

People are wrong to say that we have no heroes left.

Just as they have always been, they're all around us.

Trying to do the right thing, no matter what.

Wishing us all a day of peace for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2026.

Letters from an American was written and read by Heather Cox Richardson.

It was produced at Soundscape Productions, Dead in Massachusetts, recorded with music

composed by Michael Moss.