This is what hope looks like...
One of our many chants yesterday, "This is what hope looks like...", referring to our twenty-thirty people marching on America's Journey for Justice with the NAACP, from Selma, Alabama, to Washington DC, was repeated often.
This photo illustrates another dimension of what that chant means:
Three rabbis, the president of the NAACP local chapter in Camden, South Carolina, and a significant contingent of our sheriff's department escort, who were with us almost the entire day.
When the NAACP organized America's Journey for Justice, and when we march and post photos, we almost never see the unbelievable efforts of law enforcement to make it happen smoothly and without incident.
On a two-lane road we were accompanied by at least five patrol vehicles, directing and redirecting traffic, so that everyone could get around the one lane of traffic that we blocked with our walking. Walking with us all day were a few plain clothes State Police people. Their vigilance was astounding.
We were verbally harassed in a few places (someone did yell "White Power" at us out a passing car window). The dedication of our escort to the Journey for Justice's safety and success yesterday was best illustrated when the law enforcement personnel went into high alert, moved our march slowly into the center lane of a five-lane road, and placed patrol cars between us and a suspicious looking package near an unoccupied building.
The last year has highlighted some of the fundamental tensions in our society, and yesterday was an amazing reminder of the ways in which we are all in it together and dedicated to our shared safety and well-being.
May our anecdotes and experiences of trust begin to prevail so that we can continue to make America a place where justice prevails for all.