Dr. King and The Not-So-Straight-Line of Racial Revolutions
When I first read Dr. King’s observation of, “…when you look at a revolution you must always realize that the line of progress is never a straight line” (At Canaan’s Edge, page 554), something in me cringed and rejoiced all at once.
On the one hand King’s words expose and attack my adolescent impatience where I want all of the problems of race in America (and in the world for that matter) to be settled immediately. These last few years filled with people of color being killed at the hands of mostly white cops, and our brown siblings thrown in cages separated from families, has induced in me more than a deep sadness, but at times a hopelessness in which it’s easy to think there’s been no progress. Just the other day I sat in a meeting in which the topic of diversity was brought up yet again in a primarily white setting, and I had to fight voices of cynicism whispering in my head that this was indeed just talk, and nothing would change.
I’ve had to remind myself that revolutions are never photographs but movies, filled with scenes of tragedy and regression, but ultimately triumph and victory. Yet it’s human nature to walk through these “scenes” of regression and conclude all has been wasted.
On the other side, King’s comments about the crooked line of revolution, brings joy to my soul. Stepping back to catch a sense of the not-so-straight-line of revolution over the last sixty plus years in America there’s hope. Schools have been integrated. Segregation has been legislatively ended. Voting rights have been secured and multiethnic churches are on the rise. Oh, and a black president of the United States has been elected. No, we have not yet arrived at the mountaintop King spoke of on the eve of his assassination, but we are climbing higher and higher.
Finally, King’s remarks on revolutions makes me think of the gospel, and my own walk with Jesus. For followers of the Way, our journey is never a straight line. There are seasons of defeat and victory, tours of duty in the valley and on the mountaintop. Like the story of race in America, following Jesus is not a photograph, but a movie, where we are never to cast a verdict based on one scene of our lives, but when we stand back and look at the whole graph of that not-so-straight-line, may we see an upward trajectory, granting us confidence that we really have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
