When Hope and History Rhyme
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Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders were rather demoralized that spring of 1963. They had started a campaign to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama and it wasn’t going well. The police were jailing every marcher, which, understandably, meant that fewer and fewer people were willing to march, were willing to go to jail. King had recently been imprisoned himself. He had just written his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” It was a call to action aimed mostly at white liberals—and white liberals were not responding to that call.
Taylor Branch is a historian who has written a trilogy of books recounting the civil rights movement in tremendous detail. In Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 he writes: “The leaders could not predict exactly how an uprising would lead to victory instead of further pain, but they did recognize they were lost without some decisive move…. Having submitted his prestige and his body to jail, and having hurled his innermost passions against the aloof respectability of white American clergymen, all without noticeable effect, King committed his cause to the witness of schoolchildren.”
The first children’s march was on May 2, 1963. On that day, 958 children marched. As many of their parents watched from the sidewalks, the children sang and held signs. They overwhelmed the police and law enforcement infrastructure—over 600 children, ranging in age from 6 to 18, were arrested.
The following day, 1,000 more children marched. There was no room left in the jail so the police were instructed to get the children to disperse, using every tool available. A group of 60 children were targeted with fire hoses—and while most of them fled, ten stayed and started singing, “Freedom.” The authorities brought out more powerful hoses and the force of the water pushed the children across the pavement. Other children who marched in other directions were met with police dogs. Three children were bitten badly enough to require hospitalization. The images of all of this were seen throughout the world. And in the face of this horrific violence, 3,000 children marched on May 5. They knew that they might be hurt, knew that they might end up in jail—and they marched anyway.
Those children acted from hope, from the belief in human goodness. Those children hoped, despite ample evidence to the contrary, that those who wielded power would have the moral imagination to see them as human, worthy of equal rights. They acted with the hope that those in power would be pressured to protect them from fire hoses and police dogs, to listen to their demands for equality. They had hope that their actions would be seen and would change people’s hearts. They believed they could bend the moral arc of the universe.
And, as we know looking back, their hope that people in power would hear their calls for justice was realized. After more marches, some that were met with violence and some that weren’t, an agreement was reached. Birmingham would have integrated restrooms, water fountains, and lunch counters. The momentum from that victory carried the movement through to the March on Washington that summer, which carried the movement toward the legislation passed in the following years that ensured equality in law beyond Birmingham.
From historian Branch again, “There was no historical precedent for Birmingham, Alabama in April and May of 1963, when the power balance of a great nation turned not on clashing armies but on the youngest student demonstrators of African descent, down to first and second graders…. Never before was a country transformed, arguably redeemed, by the active moral witness of schoolchildren.”
That is one story of hope that I hope we hold as a seed in our soul, that we tend and watch so it might bloom within us, among us, and beyond us.
Here is another, an ancient Greek story about an archer named Philoctetes. Philoctetes was among those who set out for the Trojan War with Odysseus. He possessed a magical bow, given to him by Hercules just before that hero died. On the way to Troy, Philoctetes was bitten by a snake. The wound never healed. Philoctetes was in constant pain and the wound smelled terrible. Odysseus abandoned Philoctetes on a deserted island and sailed off to war.
Ten years later, the war raging on, there was a prophecy that only that bow from Hercules could end the war. Odysseus returned to the island in search of that bow, bringing with him a young soldier, who he convinced to try to steal Hercules’ bow. The play by Sophocles based on this story takes place wholly on the island, with the three men discussing war, morality, trauma, and forgiveness before Philoctetes ultimately is convinced by an appearance from Hercules, now a God, that he must go to Troy, end the war, and be healed.
Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, playwright, and Nobel Laureate, made his own version of Sophocles’s work, called The Cure at Troy. Heaney’s version brings in echoes of the modern to the ancient story. He has said that he wrote it in part to explore the challenges of reconciliation in South Africa and his native Northern Ireland. Heaney died several years ago; the words “walk on air against your better judgement” are carved on his headstone. What a powerful call to hope that is!
The character of Philoctetes is a fascinating one. He is hurt, abandoned by people he thought he could trust. His physical and emotional wounds have been festering for ten years. He wails in pain throughout the play. He has spent ten years alone, living in a cave, ruminating on what has been done to him. Then these men appear. The young soldier tries to trick him into leaving the island, saying he’ll take him home. Odysseus tries to explain how abandoning him was the right choice, how his wailing and stinking hurt the morale of the other soldiers. And they tell Philoctetes that there is a healer at Troy who can heal his wound, that there is a prophecy that only he can lead the Greeks to victory. What does one do at that point? How could he trust these words from the man who abandoned him? Should he hope? What could hope even look like after ten years of pain and isolation?
When Philoctetes is certain he won’t go to Troy, when he has convinced the young soldier to take him straight home, the chorus chimes in, with a mature hope—a hope that is fully aware of all of the suffering in the world. The chorus says:
History says, Don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.Relieve your body and your soul.
And so, with a little divine intervention from Hercules, Philoctetes gives in to hope and trusts Odysseus despite his past untrustworthy behavior. He is willing to seek out the further shore on the far side of revenge. He is able to return to right relationship with a man who has hurt him. The Gods and the chorus tell him healing can only be found through returning to relationship. He moves beyond his pain to act as though things can get better.
Now, it is dangerous to tell people to turn the other cheek and bless those who persecute you. Words like those have kept people in cycles of abuse and oppression. Forgiveness isn’t always the best course of action… but we also know that the ability to hope when there appears to be no good reason to hope is a power with the potential to change the world. “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” is a refrain often repeated by Martin Luther King Jr. He borrowed it from Theodore Parker, a 19th century Unitarian minister and abolitionist. This echoes the statement that:
…once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
We, as the church, are called to be the custodians of hope. This isn’t false hope, this isn’t a refusal to see things as they are. We know things are far from perfect, but we know that we, like those Birmingham children, have the power to bend the arc of justice. We can be a drop in the longed for tidal wave of justice.
Hope is active. Hope is six-year-olds marching in the face of fire hoses and police dogs, and wounded soldiers trusting those who might not be worthy of trust and knowing that is the source of healing. Hope is prophets turning their words into action. Hope is all the other stories of people bending the arc and being the tidal wave that we hold in our hearts.
May we be the people of love, the people of hope, the people of change.
A graduate of Tufts University and Union Theological Seminary, Rachel served congregations as a ministerial intern in Saint Paul, Minnesota and as an interim minister in Nashville, Tennessee. She was called by People’s Church in May 2015 and began serving the congregation in August 2015. She is married to Brian, a chef and brewer. They are parenting two young children, DeForest and Dorothy.
- When Hope and History Rhyme - January 1, 2019
