SOMTHING TO THINK ABOUT AND TAKE ACTION:

The bright hope of Brown was to build a society without the racial caste system that had for so long determined destiny according to skin color. The progress toward that goal has been tremendous. Yet we are a good distance from the finish. More worrisomely, we may no longer be running the race. In this political season, amid deep divisions over war, the economy, and the slate of so-called social issues, politicians of both parties seem to be running away from race. Not very long ago, racial equality was central to the national agenda. But it has been supplanted by other concerns. Everyone pays lip service to the need to help the less fortunate, to rebuild our inner cities, to assure quality education, and so on. But the true measure of a political movement is the agenda for which it is willing to ask sacrifice, and racial equality rarely makes the list.

Yet, for the Christian, the lack of national interest in racial suffering should provide both inspiration and an opportunity. The sparkling world Brown hoped to build is yet within grasp. But we will have to build it as individuals, with the small decisions of everyday life, rather than through bigger and better government programs. The nation is full of fatherless children to mentor, collapsed families to support, crumbling schools to visit—and human hearts to touch
S