December 1, 1955—Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat for a white passenger. Much has changed in this country since then. I grew up in an era where the form of prejudice I most frequently experienced was the all too well known racial slur. By contrast, my mother has told me often of her vivid childhood memory of visiting a department store, seeing a “Colored Water” sign, and innocently asking her mother what color the water was.
But even with the great changes that have swept America, I cannot help but feel somewhat bittersweet. As a student of history, I cannot help but wonder, “What if?” What if those who could have would have in the many years before? Where would we be today?
What if modern commentators spoke of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) as they speak of Brown v. Board of Education (1954)? What if John Marshall Harlan had not been the lone dissenter in 1896? What if the unanimous decision against “separate but equal” had taken place in 1896, rather then allowing such an inherent fallacy to become entrenched in law for 58 years? Where would we be today? [1]
What if Louisiana had never passed the Separate Car Act in 1890, requiring “equal, but separate” coaches for blacks and whites? What if Louisiana’s Supreme Court had struck down said law for intrastate travel just as it did for interstate travel? Where would we be today? [2]
What if Homer Plessy, a free-born man of 1/8 African descent, had been allowed to remain in that “whites’ only” car for which he had purchased a first class ticket? Where would we be today? [1]
What if John Marshall Harlan had not been the lone dissenter in the Civil Rights Cases 13 years before Plessy? What if the Civil Rights Act of 1875 had been upheld? What if equal access to “inns, public conveyances on land or water, theaters, and other places of public amusement…alike to citizens of every race and color, regardless of any previous condition of servitude” had not been stripped away? Where would we be today? [3]
What if the opinions of Benjamin R. Curtis or John McLean had been those of the majority and Dred Scot had gone free? What if the rulings of Dred Scot v. Sanford (1857) had been reversed: that slaves and their descendants were protected by the Constitution, that they could become citizens, that they could sue in court, and that the U.S. Congress could prohibit slavery in federal territories? Where would we be today? [4]
What if the framers of the Constitution, rather than enshrining slavery—by denoting slaves as “three fifths of … Persons” (Article I, Sections 2) and forbidding the halt of slave importation before 1808 (Article I, Section 9)—had instead enshrined those older “self-evident” truths, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness?” I cannot help but wonder, “Where would we be today?” [5,6]
Ah, but what if the framers of our great nation had remembered and embraced those far older and more foundational truths to “love thy neighbor as thyself” or “do good unto all men” or that, in the eyes of said Creator “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” [7]
I am not an anti-American. I love the freedoms of this country—more than any other nation can provide. And it is a testimony to the greatness of this nation that we have come as far as we have. Yet, I cannot help but wondering where we would be today had the inevitable outcome of history been realized “from the beginning.” Where would we be if it had not taken two hundred years to arrive?
I realize such are the questions of men who have the luxury of looking back. I cannot know “what might have been.” Perhaps, then, the better question may not be about the course of nations, but about the course of men. After all, is it not the decisions of men that shape the destiny of any nation? Are not the steps along our common road the result of multitudes of choices by multitudes of men?
And so the better question becomes clearer still: "What will be the history of I?" What will others look back and see from its terminus when I have left it behind? A passage straight and true from where it began to where it should have gone? Or one that bent and twisted at every opportunity from the track it should have taken? Therein lies the true lesson. And therein lies the true challenge.
God, give me strength to walk the path that You would have me to and be what I should be while I am able.
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[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson; 12/01/2010
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_Car_Act; 12/01/2010
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Cases; 12/01/2010
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dred_Scott_v._Sandford; 12/01/2010
[7] Matthew 22:39; Galatians 6:10; Galatians 3:28; King James Version
