i am not free

Calvin College has a great lecture series this month called the January Series. Today, in the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, Randal Jelks, associate professor of History and Director of the African and African Dispora Studies Minor at Calvin College, shared his thoughts from his newest book, “African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Grand Rapids".


His message was, for me, historically informative and personally inspiring. My simple notes here will not due justice to Mr. Jelks message and I will only comment on one thing that stood out to me.

Mr. Jelks mentioned that the spirit of influential African Americans who struggled for civil rights lived with the mentality that proclaimed:

I am not free if my sister is not free.
I am not free if my brother is not free.
I am not free if my neighbor is not free.

I am not free.
It's true.

This reminded me that, in the human struggle, there are not free and non free. We are all free or we are all not free.

I long for all to be free. I long to be better at longing for all to be free.

In the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we celebrate what has been accomplished and long for what yet has to be. Today is bitter-sweet.

And as Randal Jelks reminded us, we must continue to seek justice in a world of injustice.

This is a tangible expression of what the gospel is all about.