The first series of the edited videos includes conversations with men and women, almost all of whom remain deeply engaged in hard, demanding work for change:
- James Lawson , the United Methodist pastor whose teaching of nonviolent action and commitment to the poor were so vital to the rise of the southern student movement and to Martin King’s own development. After retiring from 50 years in ordained Methodist ministry, Jim found time this summer to be arrested in Los Angeles and Cleveland, first for sitting-in with the Janitors for Justice and then standing with the beleaguered community of gay and lesbian sisters and brothers in his own national Methodist denomination.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon , the founder of “Sweet Honey in the Rock” who began her singing career first in church and then in southern jails, on marching lines, and in movement mass meetings, and was fundamentally transformed by the experience. Bernice continues to teach for democratic change in classrooms and on concert stages.
- Ruby Sales , who almost lost her life in 1965 when her friend and co-worker, Jonathan Daniels, a white seminarian, was murdered during their voter registration work in Alabama. Ruby, a women’s movement and community organizer, recently completed her seminary degree and is now directing a church-based community center in Washington, DC.
- Zoharah Simmons, whose pilgrimage took her from a Memphis Baptist childhood through Black movement leadership to the completion this year of a long-sought doctoral degree. Zoharah all the while maintained her own highly disciplined spiritual life and her commitment to justice and peace, and is now a Sufi-based university professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Florida.
- Andrew Young, an ordained United Church of Christ minister, has taken his sense of religious calling into a fascinating variety of local, national and international political and economic venues. Andrew commutes between the United States and Africa in a never-ceasing commitment to the economic development of that continent.
- But two of our favorite Veterans of Hope are Rachel Noel of Denver and Grace Lee Boggs of Detroit. Having entered their 80s, these two women model the advice of the late Fannie Lou Hamer: “Keep on Keeping On!” Doing so, they remind us that the dance toward the more perfect union has always depended on veterans like Noel and Boggs, who continue to put their arms around the young folks and move on in loving determination, manifesting in their lives the title of Grace’s memoir, Living for Change.