I'm listening to Phil Ochs today and it's doing such a weird thing to me, because a lot of his songs were about people who were murdered and nationally known at the time but that we've almost completely forgotten.

I finally got curious enough to look up William Moore. I dug through a dozen wikipedia pages about "important" people to find a white postal worker who was murdered as he walked across the south to hand-deliver letters to governors arguing that they must end segregation.

From the letter William Moore died delivering to the governor of Mississippi: "Be gracious and give more than is immediately demanded of you."

I think about how John Lewis said that Emmett Till was his George Floyd. Mike Brown was mine. That's why we chant "How many? Too many." It's not about statistics, but how many chances we've had to see the faces of those lost and build a world that lets us all live to the fullest.

When I get tired or anxious, it's helpful to remember that the work for freedom didn't start with me and won't end with me. But I can dream of and work toward a day when no one's humanity is denied, when there are no more murders and there is no more need for martyrs.