“Flashback 61 years from 2026 places us in 1965, a time when the nation collectively experienced profound shock and outrage watching the brutal beatings at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, an event now etched in history as Bloody Sunday, March 7th, 1965.” The outrage forced Congress to pass the 1967 Voting Rights Act that put an end to the comprehensive voter disenfranchisement methods, including literacy tests, among others, meant to keep minorities out.

On January 6th, 2021, a well-organized mob was directed by the President of the United States to march toward the U.S. Capital Building. After arriving at the Capitol, the mob engaged with and ultimately overpowered officers from the Capitol Police Department (CPD). There was even a gallows constructed on the grounds of the Capitol. This violent engagement with the officers of CPD resulted in more than 140 officers being injured on that day, including concussions, broken bones, chemical burns, etc. Four people, including one of the rioters. were killed on that fateful day. As many as 10 and maybe more pass from this world in the ensuing days. Many of the attackers were incarcerated, only to later be pardoned of all charges and released by the very president who was re-elected by a popular-vote majority of Americans in 2024. On March 7th, 1965, in Selma, Alabama, Bloody Sunday, the images changed a nation. By March 2026, the haunting question—How far we have fallen—would stand as an unavoidable point of reflection.

Scripture names it plainly:
“Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”
—Revelation 2:5a

Poet Eric Cockrell echoes this lament in his poem of the same title:
“My ancestors walked barefoot, followed the herds, danced in the firelight… played instruments made by hand, prayed to the god of wind and rain… made love in the moonlight… owned nothing, owned by no one… how far we have fallen, how long the journey home!”

Together, these words frame both a reckoning and an invitation—one that asks not only where we stand, but whether we are willing to return to what once grounded us. day afterward.

Today’s world is moving at lightning speed toward a tomorrow in which human beings and machines must not only share intelligence through cybernetics, possibly in bodies, but also the preeminence of planet Earth. One of humankind’s last and final indelible and defining aspects as to who will ultimately assume the crown of preeminence of intelligence on this earth will be the uniquely human qualities of compassion, empathy, and a Conscience:

Conscience refers to the uniquely human inner faculty that discerns right from wrong and urges us toward moral action—or convicts us when we violate it.

A few closely related options, depending on nuance:

• Moral conscience – emphasizes ethical awareness and responsibility
• Moral compass – poetic, directional, often used rhetorically
• Moral agency – the capacity to choose and act ethically (more philosophical)
• Moral discernment – the act of perceiving right and wrong, often spiritual
• Ethical awareness – more academic and descriptive
• Innate moral sense – suggests something embedded rather than learned.

In today’s world, whether we are talking about video gaming, movies, or social media, members of Generation Alpha alone will experience many acts of violence by the time they are adults. Studies on television and media violence have historically estimated that an American child may witness about 200,000 acts of violence on screen by age 18 — roughly about 30 scenes of violence per day from birth to adulthood, if averaged out daily.

-The Wildcat article Generation V(Violence)Quyen Anderson, Opinion Editor • October 4, 2025

The tolerance for violence is only one metric for measuring how far we have fallen. There are so many more. Bottom line, if we as responsible individuals, a group society, culture, nation, or world, do not make the clearest defining signature together as people, not just a signature of consuming air food rough materials, we will be no better than the machines that are supposed to be here for the improvement of our lives.

Let March be not the March of the Machines. Let this March become the clarion call to all humanity to begin that Journey back home, not trying to wind the clock back, to some mythical better days or good old days of yesteryear. Consult the historical records; they did not exist, at least not for everyone. However, let us find our way back to loving and sharing with one another. Journey back to the self that is well-defined and separate from a conscienceless machine.