Darfur must be a priority for the next president! Anti-genocide activists from around the country joined with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, actor Mia Farrow and genocide scholar Samantha Power to ask Democratic candidates in tonight's debate: Will you divest from Sudan to stop the genocide?

"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men [sic] do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. ... We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."

Exactly one year before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered a speech, entitled "Beyond Vietnam," to Riverside Church in New York City. His April 4, 1967, speech is among his most important statements on justice, civic responsibility, civil disobedience, nonviolence and social organization -- but it also among the least read.

Today is Martin Luther King Day. Most of the clips and quotes you will hear will reflect a sanitized, anodyne rewriting of the radical social reformation King worked to advance. Yet even as his commitment to racial justice was recognized, his placement of that justice within a larger movement for social revolution was being erased.

The best quotes and links to the text of his speeches, below the fold.

As we enter the holiday season and prepare to inaugurate a new year, we would like to take the time to thank you for the dedication you have shown the anti-genocide movement. Across the country Americans like you rallied, wrote letters to newspapers, met with their representatives, donated their money and launched a range of innovative campaigns in a unified cry of "Never Again!"

We hope that your holidays are truly happy, and that you spend the next week re-connecting with friends and family, and preparing for the next year.

We are also at a crucial moment in the Darfur genocide and we call on you to remain as active in the coming weeks and months as you have been the past year.

With pictures from a year of activism below the fold, and two new ways to help: Sprint for Darfur and i-ACT citizen journalism from Darfur!

Images Courtesy of Mia Farrow

Tens of thousands of activists are trying to do nothing less than change the way the world responds to genocide — transforming "never again" from a promise we make to a commitment we keep. At a time in which the situation looks ever bleaker for Darfur and many in the international community continue along a path of indifference, we should commemorate this hard work.

We may never know what might have happened in Darfur had anti-genocide activists not risen to the occasion, but we do know that the only reason — the only reason — that political leaders have taken the steps they have is because of your efforts. In the end, we will stop genocide, but that will not bring back those who have been killed, nor excuse the inexcusable inaction of the world. Yet if even one life has been saved, it will have been enough. I hope you take some measure of strength and inspiration from these stories of grassroots anti-genocide action — and continue to fight, until the genocide is over.

The women of Darfur are being raped while collecting firewood. Thousands have been victims; often repeatedly. They now sing a song:

"This is our land ... They rape us and they kill us. Who can we depend on to help us?"


Darfurian girls prepare to leave a refugee camp to look for firewood.

What can you do? Plenty! Read on...

As a result of the Democratic surge in polls announced today, I've set up a page on ActBlue to reward all the Dems who are surging ahead:

http://www.actblue.com/...

As I write on the page, I left off people who are currently behind because I wanted to give folks an easy way to reward those who are surging ahead. That doesn't mean you shouldn't help others join the blue wave! It just seemed like we should reward those who have been doing good.

UPDATED with the most recent blogs about each candidate!

TODAY, you have the chance to make your voice heard around the world -- and have a direct impact on the ground in Darfur. Join DarfurFast to raise awareness about the crisis in Darfur and support an immediate and robust protection force to end the genocide. Find events in your area.

Activists and students around the world -- on four continents! -- will join Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, West Wing stars Allison Janney and Janel Maloney, US Envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios, authors Dave Eggers and Samantha Power, former National Security Advisor Anthony Lake, Olympic Gold Medalist Joey Cheek and others in pledging their solidarity with the victims of genocide in Darfur.

Inside: More ways to get involved, why Andrew Natsios is giving up meat and dessert for the day, and a YouTube video to help spread the word!

George Clooney and Hotel Rwanda star Don Cheadle will join Gov. Schwarzenegger and former US Secretary of State George Shultz today in public divestment of the state's holdings in companies that do business with the genocidal government of Sudan.

The event will be webcast live at 3PM Eastern/12PM Pacific, and will also feature a presentation by Adam Sterling, national policy director for the Sudan Divestment Task Force and a student at UCLA.

The divestment is a major victory for the anti-genocide movement and the hundreds of activists across the state who have been sending thousands of postcards to the governor, urging him to sign the bill passed by the Democratic legislature. Targeted divestment campaigns -- which focus on companies providing no benefit to Sudanese civilians through agricultural, medical, educational or other means -- are on the upswing in dozens of states. See what's going on in your state.

More information about the divestment campaign after the jump.

Yesterday morning, the United Nations Security Council authorized a UN peacekeeping force to expand from Southern Sudan into Darfur, to replace the African Union peacekeepers who will leave at the end of this month. The resolution asks the government of Sudan to approve the expansion -- permission that, to date, Khartoum has not been willing to give.

Please write a letter to your local newspaper this weekend, reminding your community about the ongoing genocide in Darfur, and urging your senators to support the UN peacekeepers with at least $100 million in funding.

Tips and more information on the inside.

Unfortunately I don't have time to comment much on this, but I thought people here would find it thought-provoking.

Sudan has purchased the best protection in the world: a veto-wielding member on the U.N. Security Council willing to ensure that Khartoum's campaign of human destruction in Darfur can continue. ... China is underwriting the first genocide of the 21st Century, and using their political weight to ensure that it is not stopped.

Full text on the flip, plus a poll!

This morning, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick -- who coordinated the Bush administration's efforts to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan -- announced his resignation. Zoellick's resignation leaves a huge hole in the United States' response to a situation declared by President Bush to be "clearly genocide" in which "the human cost is beyond calculation."

Please tell the president to take the next steps toward protecting civilians in Darfur by appointing a special envoy to Darfur.

http://www.GenocideIntervention.net/...

As mcjoan notes, the largest rebel group in Sudan signed a peace agreement with the genocidal Sudanese government.

Does this mean the end of genocide in Darfur?

The short answer: no. The long answer: maybe, but only if the world commits to supporting peacekeeping in Darfur.

A day after being arrested for protesting at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, members of the Soulforce Equality Ride are gearing up for nonviolent protest -- and, if the college bars them, civil disobedience -- at Pat Robertson's Regent University.

At military and religious colleges around the nation bans on gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender enrollment force students into closets of fear and self-hate. These bans devalue the life of GLBT people and they slam the door on academic freedom. The Equality Ride empowers young adults to challenge these college bans.

In the extended post, veteran civil rights leader Rodney Powell talks about the connections between the Freedom Rides of the 1960s and the Equality Ride of today -- and ways you can support the Equality Ride, by joining their events at 20 colleges around the country and sponsoring one of the 30 equality riders.

A big victory today as the Genocide Intervention Network announces that Sudan's lobbyist to the United States has resigned after sustained pressure from Darfur Internet activists.

Thousands of members of the Genocide Intervention Network urged U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to fire Sudan's lobbyist in light of the ongoing crisis in Sudan that has been declared a genocide by both President Bush and the U.S. Congress. Pressure from GI-Net members and many other individuals and organizations in the Darfur activist community led to the lobbyist's departure.

The lesson here is clear -- governments who will not protect their own people do not deserve the privilege of doing business in the United States. Concerned Americans -- you -- will not stand for it.

The Genocide Intervention Network recognizes the Bush Administration's leadership on resolving the 21-year civil war between the Sudanese government and southern Sudan, while imploring the president to make a similar moral commitment to ending the genocide in the western region of Darfur.

Innocent people in Darfur are not protected. High-level attention from the White House will end the genocide.

While the president noted the compassion shown to "a refugee fleeing genocide" in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, he chose not to outline the concrete policies necessary to translate that compassion into human security for Darfurians.

Call 202.647.5291 today -- then forward this message to 10 friends!

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice allows a U.S. lobbyist to represent the government of Sudan in Washington, D.C.

On Aug. 12, 2005, Rice exempted Sudan from long-standing sanctions to permit the hiring of a Washington lobbyist (and former State Department official). The State Department claims that the lobbyist is helping the United States and Sudan communicate. But throughout September, the government of Sudan attacked civilians in Darfur. (See articles here, here and here.) Clearly, the lobbyist is not getting the right message to the government of Sudan.

The Genocide Intervention Network and Students Taking Action Now: Darfur today launch the "Power to Protect" campaign, focused on bringing a unified student voice to bear on the United States' inaction in the face of genocide in Darfur, Sudan.

Power to Protect, accessible online at PowerToProtect.org, is the first broad-based student initiative to help resolve the ongoing crisis in Darfur. The campaign will help unify students within the Darfur advocacy movement, show the United States government that there is a vocal and active anti-genocide constituency, and pressure the government to take action.

The campaign demands that President Bush and the U.S. Congress use all diplomatic means necessary to immediately deploy a larger, stronger multinational force to protect civilians in Darfur.

Some lesser-known quotes from Martin Luther King Jr., to combat the dominant "dreamer/reformer" idea that will be sold by the media tomorrow.

King was nothing less than a radical revolutionary -- which you know if you've read his most important speech, diaried just now.