During the system-changing march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, John Lewis, whose life had already been profoundly changed, experienced “a great sense of community,” not only with his fellow marchers, but with the black men, women, and children who dared to break from the roadsides with food and drinks for the marchers, sharing a movable communion feast with Protestants, Catholics, atheists, and other divine dancers.
And at the close of one day’s march, Rabbi Abraham Heschel could testify that “I felt as if my legs were praying.”
In the closing years of the 1960s, many movement participants began to speak and act as if spirituality and democratic political action were opposed to each other. But we knew that we were called to another vision. In classes, retreats, and conferences, and in published writings and private conversations, we encouraged our movement sisters and brothers and others to nurture the healing interplay between religion and democratic transformation.
We were encouraged in this dance not only through encounters with southern movement veterans such as Bob Moses, but with other veterans of hope, such as His Holiness, the Dalai Lama; Julia Esquivel, the Guatemalan poet and pro-democracy worker; Grace and James Boggs, the Detroit-based political philosophers and organizers; Delores Huerta, the powerful farm worker organizer; Howard Thurman, the African-American mystic and visionary; Jim Wallis of Sojourners; Sulak Sivaraksa, the lay Buddhist pro-democracy leader from Thailand; and our longtime friend, the poet Sonia Sanchez.