Status quo

We have had the distinct honor to hear first-hand accounts of the civil rights protests. Hearing their stories in the documentaries we’re watching while traveling, and then hearing their own, personal accounts reminds me of the importance of questioning WHO gets to craft the history that endures. What strikes me is that these were ordinary people, standing up to do extraordinary things. They were young: Emmett Till was 14 when he was murdered. Linda Lowery was the youngest participant on the march from Selma to Montgomery – she was 14 when she started the 50 mile march and turned 15 along the way. Martin Luther King Jr. was 26 during the Montgomery bus boycott. These young people did not accept the concept “that’s just the way it is.” They stood in front of those with power, and dared to declare that the world was not just. That status quo was not right. My prayer as we continue the trip is that God continues to open our hearts to hear the hard and painful truth about our nation’s past, and that those seeds will fall on fertile ground so that we have the strength of conviction to stand up for other when the status quo works against any group of people. May our eyes be open to the ways in which other groups experience the world.

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