Nonviolent resistance will save the soul of America

Dierdre Mauss, Volunteer Corps member in New Orleans

I see that this is a time of turmoil, fear, and division, and I realize that this country has seen similar times.

Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. says, during his speech at Southern Methodist University,

“Living with the system of slavery and then later rigid standards of segregation, many Negroes lost faith in themselves. Many came to feel that perhaps they were less than human. Nagging clouds of inferiority actually formed in their mental sky.”¹

These words haunt me as I think of people of many races and cultures in this country who are trapped within systems of persistent poverty.

Rev. Joseph Wresinski’s parents were immigrants to France. He says,

“My mother was always conscious of being a foreigner, and her fear of being sent back to Spain was very real. She was terrified of the police coming to arrest us for God knows what reason, just like the mothers in emergency housing who are constantly afraid of people coming to do them harm.”²

When I see masked ICE agents on the ground in this country, I imagine that people are going through the same terror.

The words of these clergymen and their cause for justice and human and civil rights were moral and spiritual imperatives. They cause me to examine my own heart. Loving my neighbor as if he or she were my very self is a moral imperative. It is a moral issue that a disproportionate number of Black and Brown people are in jail waiting for trial, will not receive adequate representation, and may die unjustly by capital punishment or life imprisonment.³

It is a moral issue that Black and Brown people are being rounded up by masked ICE agents without access to the courts and deported to third countries. Extreme poverty, exclusion, and injustice are moral issues.

King and Wresinski believed every human being deserves dignity and society has a responsibility to act. I am society. King writes, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”⁴ And Wresinski concurs, “Every human being has the right to dignity and to be considered as a full member of society.”⁵

I use their words that resonate with me:

“It is time for me to speak with all the humility that is appropriate to my limited vision and to realize that to speak is often the vocation of agony, but I must speak.”⁶

“Learning to listen to those in extreme poverty also requires great humility. They have so much to tell us, much more than we imagine.”⁷

I must follow their advice.

“In this nation there is still a blatant social hate-filled cancer, and it is my task to get rid of hate.”

“Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”⁸

I must confront my opponent to look me in the eyes so that he would not see me as a target but see my humanity.

**“When you meet people, you get something and you give something, therefore you exist. It’s fantastic … to know that you exist and you count…”**¹⁴ Over and over again, people living in extreme poverty made clear to Wresinski that **“the greatest misfortune of all is to know that you count for nothing, to the point where your suffering is ignored.”**¹³

With Dr. King, “I have the opportunity to inject morality into the veins of our civilization.”¹⁰ I must not allow myself to be filled with hate. I must stick to love.¹¹ Love, for King, was not sentiment. It was disciplined, organized, courageous action aimed at transformation. He wanted to “save the soul of America.”⁶ Nonviolent resistance is love. When King talks about nonviolence, he says, “[It] is a powerful and just weapon. It is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it.”¹²

Through the eyes of Wresinski, I see change is possible only through solidarity, understanding, and shared humanity, not by ignoring or oppressing those in need.

This is not a weakness. It takes courage. It takes freedom. King admonishes me that I cannot speak authentically until I am free by overcoming the love of wealth and the fear of death. Nonviolent resistance will save the soul of America.

NationalKatelryn Cheon