Good Friday afternoon, everyone:

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On Monday, we will have the opportunity to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. I encourage you to find a way, through reflection or service, to honor Dr. King’s legacy.

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We all have heard and invoked Dr. King’s famous phrase, “The moral arc of the universe is long, and it bends toward justice.” After I recently included this in a writing, a friend of mine wrote to me to ask whether I knew of its origins. I had always assumed that it had emerged from the seemingly infinite wellspring of Dr. King’s creativity, brought to the moment at the end of his long march to Montgomery in 1965.  My friend said that that was certainly true – but that it stemmed from something else as well.

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He directed me to a statement in 1853 by a Unitarian minister named Theodore Parker. Parker was an abolitionist pastor preaching at a time when he wasn’t sure slavery would be abolished.  In discouragement, he wrote: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one. My eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by experience of sight. I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice.”

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And yet, Dr. King’s version is the one that endures . . . that inspires . . . that defines our collective aspiration.

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In part, that is because the times and the context were so different, with Dr. King’s paraphrase a statement of optimism, reminding those discouraged or skeptical in the aftermath of the marches in Selma, Montgomery, and elsewhere of the power of possibility opened more broadly by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the civil rights movement generally . . .

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In part, it is because Dr. King’s version is so very much more poetic, beautifully crafted, and pointed – the essence of his oratorical genius . . .

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In part, it is because Dr. King possessed a transcendent gift for distilling complexity into expression at once comprehensible and compelling . . . .

In part, it is because Dr. King and his statement were made of the same cloth – the inevitability of justice he expressed defined the how and why of his life’s work . . .

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And in part, it is because President Obama regularly invoked it to remind the nation that a presidency fueled by the hope for racial justice could not alone usher that result – that it needed to be seen as a waystation for unyielding and continuing commitment to full equality..

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Dr. King’s expressed an optimistic certitude: justice was inevitable. But, as with President Obama, he understood that inevitability should not be viewed as an invitation to passivity. Indeed, his famous phrase is best coupled with this paragraph from Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story:

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Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable. Even a superficial look at history reveals that no social advance rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals. Without persistent effort, time itself becomes an ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of irrational emotionalism and social destruction. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.

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Prescient. As we look into 2023, for Kresge – for our nation – apathy or complacency is inconceivable. Passivity is unthinkable. Vigorous and positive action is the only path forward.

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Rip

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