Does America Have the Capacity for the Enduring Qualities of Change? Let’s take a moment to ponder.

They gazed into the heavens, and at first shine, they glowed, and they blazed in the brilliance of the color spectrum of magnificence. They commanded the heavens; they captured all the light’s symphonic harmony, all the while safely protecting those under with comforting shade.

Through my Christian faith, I understand my hope comes from the fall and sacrificial death of another who has gone before me. For this same reason, many have hope. However, hope alone can only receive power when it is used as a motivation to help others.

Under the glorious light of a creator who framed them, their personas, expressions, and purposes were diverse and unique, and they shined and reflected the Imago Dei (Image of God), whose form they were shaped in. Though forging individual pathways, they met at the intersection of destiny. Through my Christian faith, I understand my hope comes from the fall and sacrificial death of another who has gone before me. For this same reason, many have hope. However, hope alone can only receive power when it is used as a motivation to help others.

One of the great misconceptions attempts to characterize justice seekers as anti-American zealots that seek the destruction of America along with being on the receiving end of Marxist memes and labels promoted by some in our country. On the contrary, in his quest to move the United States forward in the pursuit of a more perfect union, Dr. Martin Luther King shared this intersection of faith and the possibilities of this great experiment in his I Have a Dream Speech,

“And so, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I dream that one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”

Look up; I can see them: Martin, Malcolm, Medgar, and Myrlie Evers, Chief Standing Bear, Sojourner Truth, Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Desmond Tutu, JFK, RFK, Cesar Chavez, Gloria Richardson, Fanny Lou Hamer, Ida B Wells, Maya Angelou, and a myriad of others who have inspired legacies that flashed across the foliage-splashed landscape of history to fight for the oppressed clothed in darker hues.

As we here in America observe another setting sun of the shortened days of Autumn, their light still contrasts the grey October skies of the current National landscape. One by one, they seemed to fall from the splendor they once maintained.

Here, we lay in relative comfort. Pondering decisions forced upon us by the changing climate of the season, spiritually, socially, politically, and globally. Our rest is upon the fallen leaves of the lives that have gone before us, once smooth and comfortable, begin to break apart under the changes to match the rigidity of a chilling frontal pressure that desires to push us back to a place where our freedoms we enjoy now were not. The spikes and pricks of the fallen leaves on our back beckon us to wake up.

With one look up, we see they are all gone. The nakedness of the tree limbs above exposes our complacency. We are now experiencing one of America’s most forceful and sustained backlashes to what was thought to be indissoluble freedoms. Forceful, yes, but with a caveat. It has been covertly well planned by a determined small but resourceful population of the powerful, whose lust for that power never subsides.

The fallen leaves are now screaming. Get Up! From Alpha, Gen-Z, Millennials, Gen-X, and beyond muse at the folklore of past heroes and heroines, as if to say they were an anomaly. No! We are now called and enlisted to meet the challenges of today in the wake of the broken shackles behind us.  

In his writing from “The Crisis,” Thomas Pain said:

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” 

Pain’s reference to soldiers is a perfect metaphor for those invested in the cause of racial justice. Soldiers do not operate as disjointed and chaotic lone wolves of displaced rage and grievance. Soldiers operate as a unified group of individuals sharing a purpose focused on a mission. Soldiers must first be mobilized.

Our objectives are far greater than you and me; the power to cause change resides in the “We.” The authoritarian forces of polarization would want to seduce us into thinking that we are outnumbered. However, in our world of alternative facts, the spellbound anathema of the dark arts of division disempowers the masses from “mobilizing” and enlisting their power. Hopelessness, apathy, lethargy, and exhaustion become the psychological artillery launched against the so-called silent majority to keep them forever silent.  

Does America Have the Capacity for the Enduring Qualities of Change? Yes, together, we do! Here’s why.

Change is not only possible but probable by empowering individuals to collaborate their energies into a plan of execution. Our honor role of racial justice patriarchs and matriarchs had not only the gift of inspiration but execution through mobilization (“the act of organizing or preparing something, such as a group of people, for a purpose:” Cambridge Dictionary.) This mobilization raises the objective above the individual. Whether standing for hours in a long voting line, making a financial donation to a cause worth fighting for, supporting our educators who are on the frontlines of tomorrow, instructing future generations, or even supporting responsible media and voices of clarity such as Three-Fifths Magazine, we will rediscover the selfless art of mobilization, to the permanent establishment of the Enduring Qualities for Change.