The Walk That Justice Required

On March 7, 1965, six hundred men and women lined up two abreast at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. They carried no weapons. They made no threats. They simply walked. State troopers met them with billy clubs and tear gas. Dozens were injured, including twenty-five-year-old John Lewis, whose skull was fractured.

But they walked again. And again. Fifty-four miles from Selma to Montgomery, their feet wore blisters into the pavement and their voices wore conviction into the conscience of a nation. Five months later, on August 6, 1965, President Lyndon Johnson sat in the President's Room of the U.S. Capitol and signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Standing nearby were Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and John Lewis — the young man whose blood had stained that bridge. The act abolished literacy tests and other barriers that had silenced millions of Black citizens at the ballot box for generations.

The prophet Micah declared what the Lord requires: "To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Notice the prophet did not say to talk about justice or admire mercy from a safe distance. He said walk. The six hundred on that bridge understood something the comfortable often forget — that justice is not a sentiment but a journey, and that the voice God gives each person was never meant to be kept silent. Sometimes faithfulness looks like lining up two abreast, stepping forward, and walking until the world can finally hear.