Over four days at their national convention this week, Republicans promised a new Donald Trump – a man who had been permanently transformed by a failed assassination attempt just days earlier and was ready, finally, to stop attacking and start uniting.

Delegates remarked on the former president’s visible emotion each night as he entered the arena with a bandaged ear, growing emotional themselves as they described the face of a changed man. Advisers told reporters that Mr. Trump was reassessing his messaging, and Mr. Trump himself said as much in a post-shooting interview with the Washington Examiner. His speech Thursday night would bring the whole country together, he said, if not the whole world.

When Mr. Trump took the podium Thursday evening, it did seem – for the first 15 minutes – that he tried to do just that.

“The discord and division in our society must be healed,” said Mr. Trump, before he formally accepted the Republican nomination. “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America. Because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”

Soon after, however, he shifted back into old patterns, abandoning his teleprompter for long stretches. In a rambling 92-minute performance, Mr. Trump repeated many of his usual talking points from rallies. The crowd roared when he vowed to enact the “largest deportation operation,” and when he referred to President Joe Biden as worse than America’s 10 worst presidents put together – despite a pre-speech promise to not refer to Mr. Biden by name. 

Republican unity – with fuel from beyond Milwaukee

In many ways, Mr. Trump’s speech was the culmination of a week that has felt less like a warmup for the campaign’s toughest, final stretch and more like an election night victory party. And the GOP’s palpable air of optimism and camaraderie was fueled by two events outside Wisconsin that were entirely out of Mr. Trump’s control.

Evan Vucci/AP

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance sign paperwork to officially accept their nominations July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee, as House Speaker Mike Johnson (right), former first lady Melania Trump, and Mr. Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, look on.

After the assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania just days ago, his supporters, many donning makeshift ear bandages mimicking the former president’s, said they felt inspired anew. “It’s like when something bad happens in your family and you all band together,” said Gary Leffler, an alternate delegate from Iowa. “The assassination attempt has drawn everyone that much closer. It had an extremely unifying consequence to it.”

At the same time, the chaotic unraveling taking place among Democrats back in Washington, with the drip-drip-drip of congressional statements against Mr. Biden’s candidacy and increasingly dire poll numbers – showing Mr. Trump with a clear lead – made attendees here almost giddy with anticipation. 

When asked about the Republican Party’s sudden unity, Peter Navarro, a former Trump adviser who spoke at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday evening after being released from prison for defying a congressional subpoena related to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, answered in the reverse. “The Democratic Party,” he said, “is in complete disarray.”

Cheney Orr/Reuters

An attendee cheers as former President Donald Trump arrives on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, July 18, 2024.

Political disarray, of course, is what happens when a party believes it is on track to lose. It was after Mr. Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate performance that Democrats’ internal strife began in earnest. And as Republicans are now demonstrating, it’s easy to paper over differences and come together when your team is running up the scoreboard. 

The display of GOP unity this week was all the more remarkable, coming after a year of vicious infighting in the House of Representatives that led to the ouster of a Republican speaker. And certainly, it stood in stark contrast to the bitter internal divisions on view in 2016 over Mr. Trump’s candidacy – divisions that over the past eight years caused many anti-Trump Republicans to leave the party.

It’s clearly Mr. Trump’s party more than ever. But as he leaves Milwaukee as the Republican presidential nominee for a third time, only time will tell if this newfound party unity is conditional – if Mr. Trump and his supporters will insist on total fealty going forward, or if the party’s full-throated support of Mr. Trump is in part a product of polling leads.

“I think Trump has done an excellent job unifying people. ... But also, I give a lot of credit to the Democrats. Their division unites us more,” former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy said in an interview Thursday afternoon. “I hope Republicans learn from this, that we’re stronger together and we’re weaker divided. A house divided cannot stand.”

Marco Bello/Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump kisses the turnout coat and helmet of former Buffalo Township Volunteer Fire Department Chief Corey Comperatore, who was killed at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania last week, as Mr. Trump gives his acceptance speech in Milwaukee, July 18, 2024.

Internal GOP divides linger

Mr. McCarthy’s own political demise, of course, points to the recent internal cracks that have, for now, been papered over. The former speaker was ousted last year by a small faction of disgruntled party members – one of whom, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, was caught taunting Mr. McCarthy here as he was giving an on-camera interview. 

It’s also notable who wasn’t in the arena to hear Mr. Trump’s promises of togetherness.

His former vice president, Mike Pence, was fishing in Montana. The 2012 Republican presidential ticket – Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and former Rep. Paul Ryan – wasn’t here. Republican former President George W. Bush did not make an appearance, nor did former Vice President Dick Cheney or his daughter, former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. More than half a dozen Republican Senate candidates gave prime-time speeches Tuesday evening, but former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who has so far declined to endorse Mr. Trump while running for a Senate seat that would be a dream pickup for Republicans, was absent. 

“You can always say, ‘Oh, so-and-so didn’t come.’ Who cares? It’s their right not to come,” said New York Rep. Mike Lawler. 

Instead, many attendees noted all the onetime Trump opponents who were present, like primary rivals Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who endorsed Mr. Trump for the first time in her convention speech. 

Mike Segar/Reuters

Former Republican presidential contender Nikki Haley takes the stage on Day 2 of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, July 16, 2024.

“You saw many of President Trump’s primary opponents here speaking; they were well received,” said Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. He said that this convention, the 10th he has attended, was more unified than the Cleveland convention he presided over as home-state governor eight years ago.  

Still, when Ms. Haley first came onstage Tuesday, a smattering of boos rippled from the crowd. The greeting for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, when he announced Kentucky’s delegates for Mr. Trump on Monday, was almost hostile.

Trump-driven shifts are visible in Republican platform

“The party has moved from an elitist party to a working-class party. That includes the Bushes and Mike Pence,” said Mary Downey, an alternate delegate from Florida wearing an American flag dress. “It’s not the Republican Party of 30 years ago anymore.” 

That’s true not just in terms of personnel, but also in policy. In Republicans’ 2024 party platform, two longtime pillars – abortion and guns – were largely missing from this year’s document, which Mr. Trump and his team reportedly rewrote themselves and drastically shortened from the 2016-2020 version.

“As somebody that’s a Republican that believes in pro-life and believes in character that matters and believes in global leadership, I want to stay in the party and fight for some of the principles that I believe in,” said former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, one of the few Trump-critical Republicans who attended the convention without endorsing the former president, in an interview Monday. But he seemed resigned to the fact that this wasn’t the old GOP he came up in.

“It’s his party,” said Mr. Hutchinson. 

Not helping Mr. Hutchinson’s decision is Mr. Trump’s choice for vice president. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance was “the most MAGA person that was out there” among the known contenders, said Mr. Hutchinson, who worried about Mr. Vance’s opposition to supporting Ukraine. Governor DeWine of Ohio voiced similar concerns.

“It was good for J.D. Vance last night to openly acknowledge that we have differences,” said Mr. DeWine of the vice presidential nominee’s speech Wednesday evening.

But as Mr. Trump’s thousands of delegates cheered to his greatest hits during his convention speech, intraparty policy differences didn’t seem top of mind. And the former president himself seemed to recognize the gift of this political moment. 

“I better finish strong or else I’ll blow it,” said Mr. Trump. “And we can’t do that.”

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Director Kateryna Kulai stands outside the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum, its windows boarded up after a missile blew them out, in Odesa, Ukraine, May 22, 2024. “We are working to show through art a different kind of power,” she says.

On its neoclassical exterior, the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum carries sadly the wounds of war: Windows blasted out by a Russian missile attack last November are covered with plywood, the mauve stucco walls pocked by shrapnel.

But the museum’s interior tells a different story. Instead of sadness, there is resoluteness, defiance, and roomfuls of national pride.

A main gallery is hung with paintings by past centuries’ Ukrainian artists, many of whom were banned from public display during the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and even after independence in 1991.

One corridor displays the works of soldiers defending Ukraine on the front lines.

“From the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Russia has seemed in many ways to be more powerful on the battlefield than Ukraine, and this institution carries the physical evidence of that military power,” says Kateryna Kulai, the museum’s director since 2023.

“But here on the inside, we are working to show through art a different kind of power. I would say it’s the strength and determination of the Ukrainian identity,” she says.

“What we exhibit here can give an idea of why that identity has prevailed in the past,” she adds, “and why we keep believing in victory for Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in this war.”

The museum’s focus on national identity and memory is not unique. Ukraine is now in the third year of a war launched by an adversary – Russian President Vladimir Putin – who was motivated by the conviction that a Ukraine and Ukrainian culture independent of “Mother Russia” do not exist. In response, Ukrainians and their cultural institutions are redoubling efforts to bring to light aspects of national heritage, from art to literature and song.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Writer Serhii Zhadan stands outside a Kharkiv café frequented by the city's cultural players, May 29, 2024. “It’s become obvious to us that [Russia is] intending to erase something,” he says.

As enemy forces target Ukrainian cultural sites – including churches and even the smallest of village historical museums – exhibits and discussions that invite the public to explore what it means to be Ukrainian are mushrooming.

“When you look at the list of cultural and historical and educational sites [Russians] have struck and destroyed, it’s so huge that it’s become obvious to us that they are targeting them intending to erase something,” says Serhii Zhadan, a prominent Kharkiv writer who in intellectual circles has defended Ukrainian culture against Russian dominance for years.

“That adds a different dimension to what is already a fight for survival,” he says. “It becomes a battle for our identity and for our cultural independence.”

Protecting identity

For some, that battle makes exploring and asserting national identity a key part of Ukraine’s war effort.

“I would compare all these projects around the country reaffirming who we are and the values we are fighting for to a kind of shield, a layer of protection over our identity and memory,” says Andrii Palatnyi, curator at the Museum of Civilian Voices, a multimedia exhibit of average Ukrainians’ wartime experiences that was recently shown in Kyiv.

“After more than two years of war, we understand that Russia’s aim is to destroy much more than the physical Ukraine,” Mr. Palatnyi says. “We see the massive effort of reidentification Russia is undertaking in the areas it has occupied, like Mariupol.”

And in that context, he adds, “These public exhibits and activities become another part of our national defense.”

The reemergence of Ukrainian culture and identity from Russian domination predates the full-scale invasion and is largely the work of a generation that grew up in an independent Ukraine. Yet it was an eastward-facing country in which Russian language, history, and literature were not just preferred but imposed, for example in schools.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Alina Stamenova, founder of Pomizh Media, poses May 28, 2024, in Dnipro, Ukraine. The organization creates podcasts that explore local history and traditions.

“Russian was what you spoke to be accepted in society. Ukrainian was for the rural people, the uneducated,” says Alina Stamenova, founder of Pomizh Media, which aims to explore historical and cultural roots in Dnipro, an industrial city in central Ukraine.

“We were told for so long, ‘You are Russian; any other culture besides Russian does not really exist.’ So now we are discovering what it means to be Ukrainian,” she says, citing a series of podcasts her organization is producing to uncover local traditions that were “buried under the Russian influence.”

“It’s a process of decolonization,” she adds.

Language and identity

For Maryna Goncharenko, an advocate of Ukrainian identity in Odesa, the journey began with what she describes as a “personal identity crisis” that set in when she was teaching English to Ukrainians in 2007.

That job got her thinking about the nexus between language and identity.

“I started questioning why we were all speaking Russian even though we are Ukrainian and are products of Ukrainian culture,” she says. “I concluded it wasn’t just me, that we were all having this cultural crisis. ‘We speak Russian; we know Russian culture,’ I said, ‘but we are not Russian!’”

Ms. Goncharenko says that by the time of the Maidan Revolution in 2014 – which ultimately ran the pro-Russia government out of Kyiv in favor of a pro-Western replacement – most of her generation identified squarely as Ukrainian, even though many still spoke Russian as their first language.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

Maryna Goncharenko, posing in Odesa, May 23, 2024, says she had an “identity crisis” not unlike much of the country when she began questioning why Ukrainians spoke Russian and learned Russian culture in school.

Then the full-scale invasion changed everything.

“The change was very abrupt,” she says. “It was the moment when people who were skeptical about speaking Ukrainian and identifying as Ukrainian made this massive shift toward using Ukrainian in public life.”

Moreover, the war set in motion a maelstrom of events and projects, from exhibits to lectures and public discussions, exploring identity and the dual importance of rediscovering history and memorializing the war and its impact.

Another popular topic in Ukraine’s current climate is decolonization of thought – which Ms. Goncharenko describes as a national effort to break free from Russian imperialism.

“In Odesa, we know our city is particularly precious for Russian imperialists. We have heard forever the blah-blah-blah that Putin considers Odesa the crown jewel of the Russian Empire,” she says. “That has led to a lot of discussion about reflecting on and rethinking the imperial narrative.”

Odesa before Catherine

Indeed, in Odesa’s central historic district, the marble pedestal that once supported a statue of Catherine II of Russia – long considered the founder of Odesa – now holds the sky-blue and sunflower-yellow Ukrainian flag. These days the monument is ringed by dozens of small Ukrainian flags placed in memory of fallen soldiers.

With missile barrages periodically striking the city, growing numbers of Odesans, including members of the influential business community, are asserting that their hometown was a vibrant Black Sea port long before Catherine came along.

Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor

The marble pedestal in Odesa’s historic district holds aloft the Ukrainian flag, May 22, 2024. It once supported a statue of Catherine II of Russia.

“The myth is still strong that Odesa sprang to life on orders of Catherine II in 1794, but we feel it’s important to correct the myth and confirm that Odesa was a port and entrepreneurial center before it was occupied by Russia,” says Olena Matvieieva, coordinator of the Odesa Business Club’s Odesa Decolonization project. The club recently organized an “Odesa 600” festival that explored the many influences that have shaped the city over its six centuries of existence.

At the same time, some of the most active participants in Ukraine’s exploration of identity are keen to underscore that despite all the delving into the past, the national conversation is really about building a new future.

“We are moving in two directions during this war: We are discovering our identity and our past, but we are also looking toward the future,” says Mr. Zhadan, the writer in Kharkiv. “It’s important we remember that those two go together.”

Kharkiv must remember, he says, that it became Ukraine’s second-largest city based on its positioning as a border city between Russia and Ukraine, and as a result of the industrial base and the educational institutions that flourished there.

“Those are the strengths of the city that Ukrainians built,” Mr. Zhadan says. “So even if in this war the Russians destroy everything, it’s important that we build back a new Kharkiv, but one based on our roots as a city of education and of industry.”

Oleksandr Naselenko assisted in reporting this story.

When María de los Ángeles León Núñez thinks back to Venezuela’s opposition primary election last fall, organized to select a candidate to challenge iron-fisted President Nicolás Maduro, she remembers it as a party for democracy. Participants were singing, waving the Venezuelan flag, and digging into plates of food, she says, describing the October day as “divine.”

She helped organize the vote – not in Venezuela, but over 2,000 miles north in Mexico. More than 100,000 Venezuelans have sought refuge from their crises-hit nation in Mexico in recent years.

On July 28, Venezuelans are set to choose their next leader. It’s inspiring whispers of hope following more than two decades of chavismo, a political project that has become increasingly repressive under Mr. Maduro’s 11 years in office and as the economy tailspins.

To be sure, few expect the vote to be free and fair. But the election presents the biggest challenge to chavismo since Hugo Chávez took office in 1999. Some 80% of Venezuelans say they want Mr. Maduro out of office.

For Venezuelans abroad, who have access to more information than those back home and who can enjoy the freedom to politically organize and express themselves, this election has become a moment for action. From organizing opposition primary votes and debates, to encouraging loved ones back home to cast a ballot later this month, the diaspora is playing a key role in the democratic battle for the future of their homeland.

“The government has tried to curtail the diaspora vote,” says Eduardo Repilloza Fernández, director of Transparencia Electoral, a nongovernmental organization that promotes free and fair elections in the Americas. “So, what has become important is making the elections visible.”

Cristian Hernandez/AP

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gestures to supporters during a campaign event in Caracas, Venezuela, July 16, 2024. Venezuela is set to hold presidential elections July 28, and the diaspora is playing a key role in rallying the opposition.

Fighting from afar

Mr. Maduro has few incentives to give up power, and his government has taken steps to keep opponents from casting ballots. The government blocked from the race the initial candidate posed by the opposition last fall, and although there are nearly 8 million Venezuelans living abroad, less than 0.01% successfully registered to vote this year. That was in large part due to the myriad hoops the government made the diaspora jump through to register.  

The streets of Caracas brim with posters showcasing the faces of Mr. Maduro and Mr. Chávez, who died in 2013. But it’s nearly impossible to find campaign posters for any opposition leader, including the last-minute candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, a little-known diplomat in his 70s polling well over 25 points ahead of Mr. Maduro.

On social media, on the other hand, the opposition is everywhere. On WhatsApp, Facebook, and X, posts about the opposition easily go viral.

“It is not that there is less information inside Venezuela than outside. The format is different,” says José Morales-Arilla, research professor at Tecnologico de Monterrey’s Graduate School of Government and Public Transformation. Inside Venezuela, propaganda and fake news to discredit the opposition overwhelm traditional media, Dr. Morales-Arilla says.

Even though Ms. León can’t cast a ballot in next weekend’s election, she’s bending over backward to ensure family and friends inside Venezuela do.

That’s come down to information sharing. Ms. León says her parents are susceptible to fake news, like many older adults in Venezuela. The media is almost entirely state controlled and the few independent sites here are frequently blocked from posting anything deemed critical of the government. Most independent sources of information require access to a virtual private network or money for cable news subscriptions.

Ms. León has taken to passing on information about important news events or voting instructions to her father back home, “then he shares the information with his community in Guatire,” outside of Caracas, she says.

Ariana Cubillos/AP

A supporter of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro holds a poster with his image during a campaign rally in Caracas, Venezuela, July 8, 2024. Although few expect the vote to be free or fair, the upcoming presidential election is mobilizing many in the 8-million-strong diaspora to call for change.

To Ms. León, every vote counts. Over a decade ago, when she was studying history at the Central University of Venezuela, she narrowly won a seat as an opposition candidate on the pro-chavismo student council by 131 votes. She fled Venezuela in 2017 after watching her peers imprisoned for the same kind of student organizing work she was doing at the time.

José Coelho, who left Venezuela for Washington, D.C., via Bogotá, in 2022, is also trying to stay politically active from afar.

The government “robbed our primary means of participating” in the election by blocking the ability to vote abroad, says the project manager in his late 20s. He’s decided he can be of most use by “accompanying” people still in Venezuela, he says – from training and supporting activists online to raising awareness about voting rights.

He co-organized a debate in Caracas for the opposition’s primary elections from afar, and works at the Mercedes Pulido School of Government, a mostly online program to train and support Venezuelan activists, politicians, and civil society leaders. Mr. Coelho says this work is necessary because activists in Venezuela can get tired and depressed, and lose motivation.

Migration over the past decade – especially by young people – has dramatically changed Venezuela’s demographics and drained it of human capital. The Inter-American Development Bank estimates that between 2015 and 2021, the share of working-age people with college degrees more than halved from 17.9% to 8.4%.

Bridging old divides

Last fall, María Corina Machado won the opposition’s primary elections by an overwhelming 92.5% – and was barred by the government from running. Although her disqualification was a blow to the opposition, the move has had the unintended consequence of uniting the party coalition.

For decades, political tensions between Venezuela’s diaspora and those back home have been a point of contention. Venezuelans inside the country would say the diaspora abandoned them or was out of touch, while the diaspora accused those inside the country of normalizing the status quo, quietly submitting to a repressive government. All the while, the opposition struggled to get enough backing to unequivocally challenge the ruling party.

“I think that divide has diminished” since Ms. Machado won the primaries, says Mr. Coelho in Washington.

Surrounded by photos and paintings of family members, N.S., who asked to use only her initials for fear of government reprisals, is one of the few members of her family left in Venezuela. She’s taken responsibility for caring for relatives’ empty homes, and now walks dogs to supplement her modest income as a university professor. Her extended family is spread across Chile, Argentina, Spain, and the U.S.

“Information goes both ways in the family,” she says from her humble apartment in the heart of Chacao, a Caracas neighborhood flanked by the iconic Ávila mountain range. Those abroad crave insight into the atmosphere in Venezuela leading up to the vote. She looks to them for family connection and information that’s not readily available here. And in recent months, she feels that despite the distance, everyone seems to be getting on the same page.

“What matters is achieving change,” she says.

Cristian Hernandez/AP

Venezuelan opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González Urrutia (at left) and opposition leader María Corina Machado raise their arms during a meeting with youth at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, July 14, 2024. Some 80% of Venezuelans say they would like sitting President Nicolás Maduro to leave office.

Lessons for the region?

Other regional diasporas are taking note. Yunova Acosta Vargas, president of the Latin American Youth Network for Democracy, describes how members of her network learn from each other’s experiences with repressive governments from Nicaragua to Venezuela to Cuba. What is happening in Venezuela “is like a dictator’s handbook,” she says. 

But Venezuelan migrants may have a bigger impact influencing their host governments than trying to sway votes or encourage suffrage back home, adds Dr. Morales-Arilla, the researcher.

Take Colombia and Chile, two of the countries hosting large numbers of Venezuelan migrants. In Colombia, some of the nearly 3 million Venezuelan migrants living there are urging the left-wing leader, who has otherwise been friendly with Mr. Maduro, to advocate for free and fair elections. And in Chile, where over half a million Venezuelans have sought refuge, the left-leaning government, influenced by its own history of dictatorship, has taken a critical stance against Mr. Maduro at the urging of the diaspora.

“International pressure for free and fair elections, and compliance with the results” will be key next weekend, he says.

The diaspora offers “tools for the ones who are [still] inside,” says Ms. Acosta, who fled political repression in Nicaragua in 2022. At the end of the day, “change needs to happen from within.”

I was at home on the couch when the words “Donald Trump” and “assassination attempt” ran across my phone. Between this polarizing political climate and an already unpredictable campaign season, I didn’t know what to believe.

What happened in the hours and days to follow was both shocking and predictable. On one hand, Mr. Trump’s political friends and foes alike joined together – a rarity – in offering a singular message: “This is not who we are, America.”

Yet the message reflected a view of American history that, while calming, ignores the violence that has been sewn into the country’s  identity from the beginning. Chattel slavery, reconstructionist violence, and Jim Crow are just the beginnings of a different tale of what America has been.

Few people know that history more intimately than Bernice King, heiress to a family’s proud civil rights legacy.

“‘This is not who we are, America’ just doesn’t ring true to me,” she wrote on X. She continued:

My father was assassinated in this nation, gunned down on a motel balcony in Memphis, where he was engaged as a nonviolent warrior for nondiscriminatory, humane wages.

He was killed for working to end racism, poverty, and militarism, which he called the Triple Evils, and which are all still perpetuated both in policy and practice by the United States of America.

This is not who we should be.

With that honest statement about our culture of violence, political and otherwise, we can rise up to eradicate injustice and violence, and reform our rhetoric.

Crucially, Ms. King’s comments expanded on what defines political violence.

Andrew Harnik/AP/File

Bernice King sits for an interview with the Associated Press, Aug. 25, 2023.

This point was the essential message of the last chapter of Martin Luther King’s life. The year before he was assassinated, Dr. King moved beyond civil rights to focus on the “triple evils.” It was an unpopular message. 

“I wish that I could say that this is just a passing phase in the cycles of our nation’s life,” he said to the National Conference on New Politics in August 1967. “But I suspect that we are now experiencing the coming to the surface of a triple-prong sickness that has been lurking within our body politic from its very beginning. ... Not only is this our nation’s dilemma, it is the plague of western civilization.”

By this definition, political violence lies in every attempt to deny all citizens dignity and equality. The pushback against the Black Lives Matter movement? The rolling back of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts? The militarization of police departments? The war in Gaza? A recent Supreme Court ruling that allows cities to punish homeless people for sleeping in public places? In defining political violence, Dr. King would likely exhort us to consider the motives behind such actions.

Last week, the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change hosted “Be Love Day.” Aside from emphasizing the teachings of Dr. King, the event encouraged voter registration and promoted anti-bullying ahead of the upcoming school year.

“Be love” is a theme sorely needed, underlining one of Dr. King’s most urgent messages, delivered at Stanford University in 1967.

Somewhere, we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must have time, and we must realize that the time is always right to do right.

For generations, the message of the King family has been: This is not who we should be. At Stanford, Dr. King laid out a vision of two Americas. Choosing the better of them starts with being more honest about the country’s history and present, so that we might find the solutions that promise a brighter future.

Shortly after starting my career nearly 40 years ago, I drove through a summer rainstorm to claim a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden” that I’d spotted on a store shelf. Thoreau, the 19th-century naturalist and social commentator I’d first read in college, seemed good company as I began to balance the deadline-driven demands of my work as a journalist with my need to occasionally put the news cycle at arm’s length.

Decades later, as a suburban empty nester with fewer deadlines but a continuing need for thoughtful calm, I still pull Thoreau from the shelf each summer. His clarity and composure seem even more important to me these days as anxious headlines drain my focus.

I tend to connect with Thoreau most in summer, perhaps because his move to Walden Pond on the outskirts of Concord, Massachusetts, in 1845 began as a summer project. Thoreau lived in a tiny cabin there for a couple of years, growing much of his own food and recording his experiences in a book that many readers admire more as an adventure than as a practical model.

I don’t live in a small woodland house, nor will most “Walden” fans. But over repeated readings, I’ve gleaned four principles of mindfulness from Thoreau that seem as useful to me now as when he championed them nearly two centuries ago.

Find revelation in the familiar.

Although summer travel is a cherished tradition, I can’t routinely seek mindfulness by sitting on a mountaintop or booking a formal retreat. Thoreau, who famously bragged about traveling “a good deal in Concord,” found inspiration close to home. “Thoreau walked around his own small town thousands of times, with a relaxed attention that made it forever new to him,” Geoff Wisner, who’s edited several collections of Thoreau’s writings, including the recent “A Year of Birds,” told me. Spotting a bluebird in 1859, Thoreau describes it as “a speck of clear blue sky seen near the end of a storm.” 

Taking a cue from Thoreau, I try to make time each morning to scan the bird feeders outside my Louisiana home. Just a few minutes of this ritual, I’ve discovered, lowers my stress levels and leaves me more composed for the day ahead.

Keep a journal. 

Although Thoreau is best known for “Walden,” he also kept a copious journal that in one published version stretches to 14 volumes and some 2 million words. Laura Dassow Walls, a celebrated Thoreau biographer, told me in an email that she was inspired by his example to keep a journal herself. “I aspire to practice journaling as a kind of spiritual exercise in seeing, experiencing, and expressing the pulses and routines and surprises of life more fully,” she said.  

Although I’ll never match Thoreau’s diligence in recording his daily observations, I keep a small journal in my pocket, and having it near nudges me to notice little things. “Cucumbers grow ripe on the vine, hanging like piñatas in the morning sun,” I wrote from my window the other day. Journaling helps me see my life as a story, slowing its pace so that I can dwell more purposefully within each hour.

Embrace the benefits of working from home. 

Although we tend to think of working from home as a new thing, Thoreau practiced it at Walden, where he was busy finishing drafts of “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers,” “Walden,” and various essays. “It’s amazing Thoreau had time to cultivate all those beans, keep up with his family and his chores in town, take his daily walks – and, oh yes, entertain frequent visitors,” Dr. Walls told me. “Thoreau’s two-plus years at Walden Pond were the most productive of his very productive lifetime.”     

As he scribbled away at Walden, he was buoyed, Dr. Walls writes in her biography, by “the summer air, wafting through the chinks in the walls, carrying the scent of pine and the sounds of birds.”

I try to embrace similar pleasures on workdays at home, opening a door to enjoy an occasional breeze or birdsong from the yard, or taking a lunchtime walk. These kinds of respites remind me that wonder doesn’t have to be writ large in my life to warrant my attention; it can sometimes dwell within the fine print of an ordinary Wednesday afternoon as wind grazes my cheek or a cardinal flutters into view.

Find partners in mindfulness. 

Though often regarded as a loner, Thoreau was known to take people along on his hikes, something that on occasion seemed to sharpen his pleasure in what he saw. His friend Ellery Channing was a frequent tagalong, as was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s son Edward.

Though I’m a fan of solitude, a recent Saturday morning with a kayak club paddling a stretch of Louisiana wetlands reminded me that fellowship can kindle collective awe. I might not have spotted a turtle on a log as he drank in the sun if another kayaker with keener eyes hadn’t pointed it out. As I pursue mindfulness, the support of fellow travelers has helped me understand that the hunger for this kind of mental centeredness is a shared part of the human condition. It’s why Thoreau alternated between solitude and society, recognizing that they could mutually sustain his desire to live with attentive purpose.

What I’ve also learned from Thoreau is that mindfulness, properly embraced, is a continuing pursuit, something to practice without expecting perfection. He chastised himself for missing stuff, but the important thing, he pointed out, is to keep trying. “Be so little distracted,” he wrote in 1851, “your thoughts so little confused, your engagements so few, your attention so free, your existence so mundane, that in all places and in all hours you can hear the sound of crickets in those seasons when they are to be heard.” 

Reuters

American breaker Logan "Logistx" Edra performs during an Olympic qualifier event in Budapest, Hungary, June 22.

“We’re going to bring something new to the table. We’re going to bring a vibe.”

That is how U.S. athlete Victor Montalvo describes the newest sport to reach the Olympics. At each Summer Games, the host city gets to add new events. Tokyo introduced surfing for the 2020 Games. In 2016 Rio de Janeiro featured rugby. When the XXXIII Olympiad opens in Paris next week, the new athletes will be breakdancers, aka B-boys and B-girls.

“We’re going to bring that peace, love, unity, and having fun,” Mr. Montalvo, a world champion breaker, told CGTN Sports Scene. “This is like a beautiful art form. ... You don’t need money, you know; you just need a dance floor. That’s it.”

New events sometimes raise a furtive brow among Olympic traditionalists. Yet the Games have long included sports that blend balletic grace with athletic agility. As with figure skating and gymnastics, breaking requires individual expression as well as technique and control.

The dancers do not choose their own music. Nothing is choreographed. They are scored on their musicality – or how they respond to the tracks played. In an unusual gesture, judges often open competitions by performing first.

Around the world, dance is closely associated with war or peace. The Cherokee taunted their enemies with the eagle dance, while the Maori in New Zealand did a haka. Their performances were not just demonstrations of prowess, but also stage-setters for dialogue, reconciliation, and charity.

So it is with breaking. The form arose in the Bronx in the late 1970s as a way to defuse tensions among youth from diverse urban communities. Events are called battles – street gatherings in which rivals forge respect, even affection, through joyful, artful competition.

Like hip-hop, the musical form it expresses, breaking has grown into a global phenomenon. For some of the athletes participating in Paris, such as Amir Zakirov of Kazakhstan, breaking was a path to personal redemption.

“When I was a kid, I smoked, I drank alcohol. I was in a very bad community,” he told Olympics.com. Breaking helped him express originality, agency, and freedom from limitation. “I started to understand what is bad, what is good.”

Mr. Zakirov’s experience is not uncommon. In a 2018 study in Ecuador, one youth described breaking as mental armor. A similar study in South Africa noted dancers had “a child-like innocence.” Logan Edra, an American dancer competing in Paris, says breaking helps erase differences based on age, gender, or race.

Its freedom of expression and joy of community, she told CGTN Sports Scene, are “a powerful energy that we’re bringing into the Olympics.” The modern Games, after all, were revived in the 19th century to bring about peaceful coexistence.