Family, I know that these are chaotic uncertain times, it’s easy to find oneself consumed by the cruelty and dysfunction of it all, but it is essential for our survival that we not allow despair to take over.

I’m no longer asking myself, “How low can they go.”

Folk who speak with a mouthful of scriptures but carry a heart full of hate.

Folk who define efficiency as making people hungrier, poorer, and sicker.

Folk who claim to embody patriotism but move with criminality and cruelty, including on January 6.

I’m no longer asking myself, “How low can they, folks who sow chaos and terrorize communities in the alleged name of public safety?”

I’m no longer asking myself, “How low can they,” those who fear DEI more than they do a dictator.

I don’t ask that question anymore. I’m only asking, how hard can I -- how hard can WE fight? And fight we must.

I don’t know about you, but what calms me in the midst of it all is that knowing, the deep ancestral knowing, that someone already wrote the blueprint for my survival, for our survival.

In the words of Coretta Scott King, who was not merely a grieving widow who picked up a mantle, she was already a leader and an architect for progress and change.

She reminds us that freedom is never really won.

You earn it and win it in every generation.

Some may feel defeated by the notion that freedom does not exist in perpetuity. I am calmed by it. I am instructed by it.

It makes clearer to me my responsibility, a collective responsibility.

Right now, we must do the work of winning freedom. All around us, throughout history, and in this moment, we see evidence that progress does not exist in perpetuity.

Let me just see if you’re paying attention, and you know, the Supreme Court have been enlisted as accomplices in authoritarianism and in rollbacks of Black power and progress.

I mentioned to you there’s only been 64 black women to serve in the 236 years of Congress. Well, we could see up to 30 seats on the Congressional Black Caucus decimated.

We are waiting for a ruling from the Supreme Court on Section II of voting rights, but I remain calm and anchored despite the coordinated, unrelenting cultural and legislative attacks on Black people, on Black bodies, on Black votes, on Black power and Black progress -- from the Supreme Court to the White House.

But I’m calm, I’m focused, I’m anchored by the blueprint our ancestors wrote with their prayers, with their imaginations, with their brilliance and resilience.

The blueprint is written in their radical dreams and the shedding of their blood.

The blueprint is written in their strategies for change, their marches, boycotts and mobilizations for progress, for justice.

The blueprint is written, in the words of Dr. King, who instructed us to have a deep belief in one’s own dignity, worth, and your own somebodiness.” King said, “your life matters, has ultimate significance, you should never be ashamed of your color. You are Black and beautiful.

So you see, I don’t care much what the insecure man with a small mind, small heart, and even smaller hands has to say, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, who thinks he is a King.

I care about the words of Doctor King who followed the word of the King of Kings.

I don’t care about the wannabe king — I care about Doctor King.

I care about the words and deeds of a profound 39-year old, Black young man, an unarmed champion of peace, gunned down on a balcony in Memphis, who while he lived was an original architect of Black Lives Matter, who wrote the blueprint for the Civil Rights movement, for equality, for justice and for my survival.

I can keep on keeping on, don’t y’all worry about me. I can keep on keepin’ on for my Black family.

I can keep on keepin’ on for you and yours, for the Massachusetts 7th, for all of humanity because I believe in the somebodiness, I believe in the value, I believe in the significance, I believe in the promise of each and every one of us.

Dr. King challenged each of us to “be involved in the struggle for freedom and justice, to make your nation a better nation, to make life better for everybody.”

You can throw whatever you want at me. I was on television this morning and the trolls were in there, “I could barely hear what you said because your head is so shiny.”

And I pastor, I couldn’t help myself, Rev. Bodrick, I had to go in there, and I had to tell him, that’s just my crown.

So you can throw whatever you want at me and my Black husband and our Black family, but I will not go quietly into the night.

My conscience, my faith, the example and instructions of Dr. King simply won’t allow me to roll over.

Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round.

God bless you, Church!

Ayanna Presssley is U.S. representative for Massachusetts’ 7th congressional district.