WASHINGTON—U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Friday authored an op-ed in Foreign Affairs making the case that a new civil rights movement—sparked by the protests following the murder of George Floyd—could potentially reverse some of the damage done to American influence and power by the Trump administration and help foster democracy and human rights movements abroad much as they did during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

“Just as the world today is consumed with images of American law enforcement officers pepper-spraying peaceful protesters in front of the White House and pushing old men onto the sidewalk, so was the world transfixed by similar scenes during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. And just as many Americans today surmise that the eruption of these civil rights protests and President Donald Trump’s scornful and often brutal response to them have accelerated the descent of the United States’ reputation around the world, so, too, did those who lived through the events of the country’s first civil rights movement,” Murphy wrote.

Murphy continued: “Yet fears that the new tempest over racial justice is making the United States look weak in the eyes of the world are totally and completely upside down. This moment of reckoning could end up becoming a defining advertisement for the American model, a body blow to autocratic regimes all around the world, and a way for the United States to reclaim much of the moral standing that it has lost during the past three years.”

Murphy wrote: “It is too early to tell if the Black Lives Matter movement will end up being as enduring, significant, or successful as the movement that resulted in forced desegregation, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act. But maybe the country is at the dawn of a second civil rights movement that will prompt fundamental reforms to its systems of law enforcement, criminal justice, housing, and school finance. Could it also be that Americans’ ability to squarely confront their demons and use the tools of democracy to profoundly alter the status quo will relight the country’s torch in the eyes of the world? Might simmering human rights campaigns and democracy movements around the world find new strength, watching millions of ordinary Americans, powerless on their own, move a nation to long-overdue action through collective strength?”

“Three and a half years of Donald Trump serving as the face of the United States have done incalculable damage to the country’s standing in the world. It will take a truly exceptional turn of events to reverse this downward slide of American reputation and influence. But what has happened in our imperfect, always-correcting nation over the past two weeks is truly exceptional. And maybe—just maybe—the country’s second civil rights movement will be its best chance to reset its image and influence around the world,” Murphy concluded.

Click here to read the op-ed in full.

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