Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr.
So many heroes and more are needed
On April 4, 1968, I was watching television with my in-laws while my husband was serving in Vietnam. As the shocking reports of Dr. King’s assassination played across the screen, my mother-in-law said, “It’s about time.” All I could do was leave, but later I wrote the poem below. I post it every year, mostly to honor Dr. King, Rosa Parks and all the other heroes in the fight for equality. Partly to make up for my loss of voice at the time.
Today is the birth date of Rosa Parks. So many brave people have given so much … and so many continue the fight for equality every day. Heroes all.
Heroes stand up to oppression, protect the unprotected, and carry on when all looks lost. May each of us find in ourselves the determination and strength shown by the heroes who have gone before us and join with the unsung heroes who stand beside us.
This year that lies ahead of us will also have heroes. Some we will notice and be grateful for, some whose work we will not notice perhaps for some time into the future and fail to thank them now. For all of our braver angels, thank you.
Joyce Wycoff, ©2025
I may be an Aussie but these are people I have heard of, amazing and strong people who made a difference
Thanks Joyce. Our own roles in contemporary roles are discussed by Richard Rohr:
"The key to living as a prophet-mystic is showing up for what is, no matter how heartbreaking or laborious, how fraught with seemingly intractable conflict and how tempting it might be to meditate or pray our way out of the pain. Contemplative practices train us to befriend reality, to become intimate with all things by offering them our complete attention. In this way, the prophet and the mystic occupy the same broken-open space. The nexus is grief. The mystic has tasted the grace of direct experience of the sacred and then seemingly lost the connection. She feels the pain of separation from the divine and longs for union. The prophet has perceived the brokenness of the world and is incapable of unseeing it. He feels the pain of injustice and cannot help but protest. But the mystic cannot jump to union without spending time in the emptiness of longing. The prophet must sit in helplessness before stepping up and speaking out."