A Relentless Drive

Myrlie Evers-Williams had salt-and-pepper black hair cropped short, and she wore a patterned red and black scarf draped across her shoulders like a queen’s robe. She held herself with such regal dignity that the wheelchair she sat upon seemed to become a throne. She spoke with a deliberateness and profundity that made us all lean forward to catch every utterance.

We were in Jackson, Mississippi. I was part of a group of journalists and writers who had been granted a private audience with this legend of the civil rights movement on the grand opening day of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum on December 9, 2017.

At eighty-four years old, Myrlie Evers-Williams still sounded a note of hope in her public remarks. “Going through the museums, I wept because I felt the blows, I felt the bullets, I felt the tears, I felt the cries. But I also sensed the hope that dwelt in all those people,” she said.

Her dedication to justice and interracial fellowship was improbable given what she had experienced. Most people know Myrlie Evers- Williams as the widow of Medgar Evers, the NAACP field secretary of Mississippi who was gunned down in his driveway by a white supremacist.

Born in 1925 in Decatur, Mississippi, Medgar Evers became the first field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP in 1954. The Mississippi movement had been persistent but lacked unified leadership until Evers came to the helm. Evers helped organize Black people in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. After the lynching of Emmett Till in 1955, Evers dressed up as a field hand to blend in and put people at ease as he gathered eyewitness accounts. He championed people like James Meredith, helping Meredith get admitted to the University of Mississippi, and organized economic boycotts. Medgar and Myrlie met at college in Mississippi, and they became colaborers in the NAACP and civil rights activism. Both of them shared a strong sense of justice, a deep affection for one another, and an abiding faith in God.

In the aftermath of her husband’s death, Myrlie Evers-Williams became a renowned activist in her own right. She moved her family to California, where she twice ran for Congress. She led the NAACP as the chairperson of their board of directors for several years. She delivered the invocation at Barack Obama’s second presidential inauguration and received numerous accolades for her contributions to civil rights along the way.

Now she was back in her home state of Mississippi, addressing crowds at the museum that exhibited the same gun used to murder her husband more than half a century prior.

After the public portion of the grand opening, she took time to answer our questions in a smaller gathering. One journalist asked her about the state of race relations today. I’m glad I was recording because her words helped inspire this book.

“I see something today that I had hoped I would never see again. That is prejudice, hatred, negativism that comes from the highest points across America,” she told us. Then, with the candor that comes with old age, she said, “And I found myself asking Medgar in the conversations that I have with him: Is this really what’s happening again in this country? And asking for guidance because—I don’t mind admitting this to the press—I’m a little weary at this point.”

At that moment, I fully expected her to expound on the weariness of fighting for racial justice for decades. To vent about her frustrations with people who still oppose the laws and policies that would move us closer to racial progress. To say that she was passing the torch to another generation and that she had earned her rest. But she took her comments in a different direction—one that pointed to the strength and resolve of the staunchest defenders of justice.

“But it’s something about the spirit of justice that raises up like a war horse. That horse that stands with its back sunk in and hears that bell—I like to say the ‘bell of freedom.’ And all of a sudden, it becomes straight, and the back becomes stiff. And you become determined all over again.”

Here was a woman who had endured decades of exclusion and injustice, punctuated by the assassination of her husband. She had fought and labored her entire life for change. Yet even in the ninth decade of her life, she still had the resolve to continue the struggle for racial justice. I couldn’t fathom it. I couldn’t make it make sense.

My mind lingered on a phrase she used: the spirit of justice. In the years since I heard Myrlie Evers-Williams speak those words, I have often pondered their significance. As I’ve studied history, I’ve found a pattern of endurance not only in her life but in the centuries- long struggle for Black freedom. Time and again, people endured the most horrendous results of racism, but somehow they kept going. They kept working, loving, fighting, and moving toward a better future.

How? How do people see the worst of humanity, experience the most demoralizing setbacks, and still find the resolve to work for change? How do they not give up? What keeps them going?

The Spirit of Justice

There is a relentless drive in human beings, both inward and transcendent, that demands dignity and propels our progress—it is the spirit of justice. It is the conviction to continue the struggle no matter the odds or the obstacles. It is the heartbeat of people who hunger and thirst for righteousness. It will not concede. It will not let the evil of racism and inhumanity prevail. It will not quit until justice rolls down like a river.

The Spirit of Justice probes the depths of history and asks: What manner of people are these who courageously confront racism instead of being complicit with it? And what can we learn from their example, their suffering, their methods, and their hope?

The spirit of justice is a force for liberation. It inspires strength in those who understand that they must play a part in making the world kinder and more equitable. The spirit of justice animates action. It molds hearts and strengthens hands for the work of correcting oppression. It keeps weary feet moving on the protest path. It uplifts the souls of those persecuted for the sake of righteousness. It is finding your second, third … 50th wind as an aged activist, pushing further for just a bit more progress.

The spirit of justice is reflected in the human spirit, the indomitable will of oppressed people everywhere to rise up and throw off the burden of injustice. The spirit of justice is found in every culture, continent, and community. We see it expressed in those who struggled for freedom against apartheid in South Africa, colonialism in India, and labor exploitation in Mexico. It is the irrepressible instinct that says, “I will not endure indignity. I will make you see my worth, and you will treat me accordingly.”

For those who claim the Christian faith, one might understand the spirit of justice as the Holy Spirit. The indwelling Spirit empowers the believer to do the work of loving God and loving neighbor. This struggle for justice encompasses both material and spiritual dimensions. As the apostle Paul once wrote long ago, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph. 6:12).

With the eyes of faith, one can see that the Spirit of justice is not an impersonal force detached from the human experience but the Holy Spirit of God, who lives within the hearts of those who follow Jesus. This is not to say that the work of justice can be accomplished only by Christians. People of any religion or none at all can and do pursue the common good from common grace—a blessing bestowed upon all of humanity. For followers of Jesus, the Spirit of justice grants them spiritual gifts to equip them for their work of redemption in the world. The Spirit supplies believers with spiritual armor to fight injustice (Eph. 6:10–20). The Spirit enlivens and motivates the pursuit of all forms of justice because God hates injustice and seeks to correct oppression (Isa. 1:17). The Spirit of justice is always at work to inspire followers of Christ to undertake acts of liberation and bear witness to the good news of their Savior.

At the inauguration of his public ministry Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me.” That Spirit empowered Jesus for his mission “to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18–19). That Spirit abides in all who, because of their faith in Jesus, seek to follow his example and continue his mission. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17).

However, the work of the spirit of justice is not confined to the past. Nor is it the privilege of a single group or individual. The spirit of justice belongs to all of us. We must learn to recognize the work of the spirit of justice so we too can continue the struggle against racism in our generation.