may we learn from their example, by their faith our
doubts assuage.
May their steadfast resoluteness as they followed in Your
way
be for us an inspiration as we serve the present day.
---Milburn Price, 1981
I have written before about the deep and lasting impact that
repeated visits to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice have made, continue to make, on my life and spirit.
This quiet memorial situated in Montgomery, the heart of the deep South,
chronicles the dark cruelty of humanity—and the soul of a culture trying to
address that cruelty clear-eyed, and to find a way to heal, and thrive,
together. At the Memorial, in addition to the truly overwhelming silent witness
of named victims of racial terror lynchings, county by county, several
sculptures speak to other steps on the path to ‘now’ for black people. One
sculpture work that I am thinking of today is Guided by Justice, by Dana King. In it are depicted the figures of
three of the many black women who powered the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the
mid-1950’s. The figures shuffle, wrapped in overcoats against the raw midwinter
chill, faces etched with weariness, each solitary with her thoughts. Beside the
figures are shoeprints planted in the gravel pathway.
In all the time I have stood and watched that sculpture, I
have not seen a visitor walk by without at least lining up their own foot
beside those shoeprints; many stood in the prints, struggling to manage the
emotions threatening to overwhelm them. I know this was my story. And when I’m
weary with struggling to see right done, and tempted to give up, I remember
that privilege is having the option to give up. And I remember the feeling of
fitting my feet into the prints of those women who walked because they had no
option left. And their faith and resoluteness lifts me, and reminds me. And I
walk on.
