Regarding the current state of affairs marked by mounting intergroup intolerance, friction, and sometimes violence, the United States of America is at an inflection approaching a flashpoint as the November general elections near.

Born a person of African heritage in America prior to the end of legal apartheid, 50-plus years ago in the '60s, I am a living testament to our nation's unfortunate history of inequality enforced with brutality. My ancestors endured ten generations - 250 years - enslaved, endowed with human rights akin to livestock. 

This was followed by four generations - 100 years - of court-sanctioned legal oppression known as Jim Crow. Today, we face a new wave of rhetoric and machinations from jurists, politicians and pundits that signals a return to official repression, expanded this time to impugn a much wider slice of citizens who are deemed to be 'undesirables,' if the majority, Americans of reason, do not strongly vocalize our intolerance for regressive Democracy.

With whispers of civil war, secession, and armed organized hate widely circulating it is time for we citizens of goodwill, everyday decent folk, to restate our embrace of the ideal that from many cultures we are one nation under God, universally entitled to Life, Liberty, and Pursuit of Happiness, who equitably share our citizenship franchise.

We are speaking as America’s majority voice.

We must not allow a vociferous minority with counter-Democratic intentions to dictate the fate of the nation whose trajectory in recent decades had been toward becoming a more perfect union. 

All humans are created equal. We therefore reprise our commitment to remain allied towards a more unified United States as a we approach 2024's national electoral contests and the widespread vitriol some suspect may come to a head resulting from it.

Our fragile country desperately needs healing right now, and we who are the moderate mainstream majority have a responsibility to maintain a united front.  

My personal commitment to the ideal of Unity came as a small child for the first time witnessing his parents’ vulnerability when they convulsed and cried upon the occasion of Martin Luther King Jr’s martyrdom.

Not only were our family acolytes of MLK’s philosophy, the reverend was also a regular visitor to our neighborhood, being close friends with our pastor who lived three doors down. Dr. Marion Curtis Bascom, who married my parents and christened my birth, called MLK, “Mike;” MLK’s birth name was Michael, not Martin.

In our home, Martin’s loss was very personal. View this published account of our families ties: 'Martin Luther King Jr. Was Here Again'.

Another seminal youthful experience that informed my embrace of Unity as a personal cause célèbre was the occasion when I was in elementary school that my father shipped me an oversized globe from Germany during his time in the military. My dad enlisted in the U.S. Army upon graduating from high school during wartime to serve in Korea with distinction.

When I compared my new globe to the photos I had seen of the Earth taken from the Moon, I could not understand why the lines, national borders, displayed on my globe did not appear on Earth photos taken from the Moon by the astronauts. 

Although I did not fully understand the response my father gave me at the time I inquired, my soldier dad’s answer was that those ‘lines’ were the cause of most of the world’s conflicts and wars.
 
To a little kid, however, it was clear from the photos that the Earth was home to all humans universally, that our physical and cultural differences defined by geography and climate were artificial characteristics of our shared humanity.

My world-traveled father, courtesy of Uncle Sam, spoke Korean, German, and two dialects of Italian, Romanesco and Sicilian. He was so proud of the tuxedo he wedded my mother in, which he had custom-tailored in Tokyo.
I inherited dad’s respect and fascination for the world’s cultural diversity, and delight in meeting and engaging fellow Americans whose race, culture, ethnicity, religion or gender are distinct from mine.

In the 1990’s I partnered with a rabbi, president of a nonprofit committed to ameliorating racial tensions in New York City, to successfully devise, develop and direct, the GOLDEN OpportUNITY FOR UNITY campaign, earning recognition from the New York congressional delegation.

A powerful mentor in my life was the late Stanley Bleifeld, world-renowned sculptor and former president of the National Sculpture Society in New York City. When I envisioned building the GOLDEN OpportUNITY FOR UNITY sculpture in Manhattan, I reached out to him for support and he unhesitatingly consented.

Stanley invited me, my wife, son and daughter, to visit him and his wife, Nikki, at their home and studio in Connecticut. When I saw him last in 2008, it was at the Virginia State Capitol in Richmond for the unveiling of the Virginia Civil Rights Memorial, which Stanley had sculpted.

On the dais, after the unveiling, he whispered to me, “Regi, you were my inspiration as I constructed this monument.” We had become very close. Over the 20 years we were acquainted, sculpture was usually the last thing we might have talked about in our many, many conversations. He died at 87 from a fall while playing tennis.


In 2018, I devised, developed and directed Unity Week in West Palm Beach, Florida, successfully encouraging the city’s mayor to officially proclaim the week encompassing Unity Day that year, Sunday through Saturday, October 20 until October 27, as an official citywide initiative and celebration.

I share these personal anecdotes to make clear that my ask of fellow citizens to pledge on behalf of the Multicultural Americans’ Goodwill Alliance is a legitimate, heartfelt noncommercial attempt by one caring American to blunt an anti-Democratic movement afoot in our country which is very real, very dangerous, and potentially imminent. 

This is an appeal for pro-civility, anti-violence, and decency. It is not a strictly partisan effort. It is an affirmation of committed patriotic American citizenship of the brand my father volunteered for war to defend.

Stand with us to affirm E Pluribus Unum for the future of America by signing this petition today and please turn out on National Unity Day, Wednesday, October 16, 2024, at rallies, vigils, and services nationwide to stand up and be counted against anti-democracy and hate. WE ARE the UNITED States!