“I Thought We Had Come Farther Than This” 

My phone rang shortly after the President’s self-revelatory rant yesterday. With tears in his voice, a wise friend, a native of South Carolina, said, “I thought we had come farther than this.” He went on to say that he is fearful for the future of our country. He wondered if there is any hope.

In a sadly ironic twist of history, Monday was the day the Episcopal Church remembers Jonathan Myrick Daniels. He was a 29-year-old student at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Cambridge, Massachusetts, when Martin Luther King, Jr., called for people of faith to come to Selma to support the voter registration drive.

Daniels was among a group of non-violent protestors who were arrested on August 14, 1965. They were held in overcrowded cells with no air conditioning and toilets that spilled sewage onto the floor until they were unexpectedly released on August 20. They were entering a store to get a drink when Tom Coleman confronted them with a shotgun. When Coleman fired, Daniels shielded 17-year-old African-American Ruby Sales and died instantly. Coleman was later acquitted by an all-white jury.

The Company of the Martyrs

Johnathan Daniels was just one of many martyrs whose lives were taken by white supremists during the civil rights movement. Those were a fraction of the thousands of Black Americans who suffered and died at the hands of white lynch mobs throughout the South, particularly in Central Florida. Those were a fraction of the victims who died in the Holocaust and the millions who died to defeat Nazism. The martyrs of racism and bigotry are too many to count.

We thought we had come farther than this. But now, a new generation of Neo-Nazis and white nationalists have come out of the dark shadows of the past to confront us again with their hatred, bigotry and violence.

Yesterday, while David Duke and his followers were laughing and cheering because they have a friend in the White House, all of the martyrs around the throne (Revelation 7:9-17) were weeping and crying, “How long, O Lord?” (Psalm 13)

How Long? 

Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his answer to that question at the end of the march from Selma on the steps of the Capital in Montgomery. The entire address is well worth hearing again today, but he concluded with words that became a energizing refrain to many of his sermons:

I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, “When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?” (Yes, sir)

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” (Yes, sir)

Where Is Hope? 

While I shared the disappointment, fear and concern that my friend expressed on the phone, I reminded him that our hope is in the Kingdom of God which is stronger than the forces of evil around us. However long it takes, God’s Kingdom will come and God’s will will be done on earth even as it is in heaven.

Glory, glory hallelujah!

This article originally appeared on the author's blog. Reprinted with permission.