For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
Ephesians 2:14-16 NIV
There are places that change the way we see the world. Not necessarily because they tell us something we did not know, but because they make it impossible to continue knowing it in quite the same way.
My recent racial justice pilgrimage to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, was such an experience. Travelling with friends and colleagues from the Church of England, I encountered the history and continuing legacy of racial injustice in the United States. The pilgrimage challenged me to reflect on the stories societies tell themselves, whose experiences are remembered and whose voices are pushed to the margins.
As we mark Black History Month, these questions invite us to look beyond familiar accounts of history, listen to those whose experiences have been overlooked and consider how the pursuit of racial justice requires us to change.
Our pilgrimage took us to the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, as well as the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where civil rights marchers challenged the injustice of segregation in 1965. These places bear witness to slavery, racial terror and segregation, but they also confront us with the consequences of forgetting, denying or inadequately acknowledging the past.
History is never simply a record of what happened. The stories we tell shape our understanding of the world, determining whose suffering matters, whose humanity is recognised and what kind of future we believe is possible.
The power of proximity
One of the most important lessons I took from the pilgrimage was the power of proximity.
It is possible to know about injustice while remaining at a safe distance from it. We can acquire facts, develop opinions and express solidarity without allowing what we encounter to disturb the arrangements of our own lives. Proximity changes that. It brings us closer to people whose stories might otherwise remain at arm’s length, challenging our assumptions and expanding our understanding.
For Christians, this is more than an ethical principle. It lies at the heart of the ministry of Jesus. Christ draws near to the sick and excluded, to the grieving and to those whom society has placed beyond its boundaries. The incarnation is, among other things, God’s refusal of distance.
Listening, therefore, is not simply an expression of courtesy. It means allowing another person’s experience to become consequential for us. It requires us to recognise that our understanding may be incomplete and that we, too, may need to change.
I was reminded of this by a memory from my childhood in Kamina in the Democratic Republic of Congo. One particular Sunday morning we heard a melody carried on the wind and all assumed that the church choir was rehearsing for Sunday worship. All, except our grandfather. He was able to recognise that the sound we mistook for praise and worship, was in fact the sound of lament; the lament, we later learned, of a family mourning the death of a loved one.
We had heard the melody but misunderstood its meaning because we interpreted it through the music we expected to hear. Perhaps we, too, need to learn to listen differently, becoming more attentive to the suffering and experiences of others.
Truth is the ground of hope
At the Legacy Museum, the history of slavery, racial terror, segregation and mass incarceration is presented in ways that challenge comforting narratives about the past. It confronts visitors with the connections between historical injustice and its continuing consequences.
I was struck by the importance of truthful remembrance. Nostalgia can offer us a reassuring picture of history, smoothing away its contradictions and silencing the suffering that might trouble our sense of ourselves. Truthful remembrance does something different. It refuses both denial and romanticisation, allowing the past to be encountered in its fullness.
I was particularly moved by a story shared by Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative. A woman collecting soil from a site where a Black man had been lynched was approached by a white man who stopped to find out what she was doing. When she explained that she was collecting the soil to honour the man who had been murdered there, he asked whether he could help. The two began digging together.
Their shared labour did not undo the violence of the past. But the truth was spoken, and something unexpected became possible.
The story reminded me that reconciliation cannot begin by asking the wounded to forget. It begins by refusing to bury their memories again.
Truth is not the enemy of hope. It is its ground.
For the Church, this has profound implications. We cannot speak credibly of reconciliation while remaining indifferent to the ways power and privilege shape our common life. Nor can we build a different future while refusing to acknowledge the causes and consequences of injustice.
Hope does not require us to overlook painful truths. It calls us to face them with courage and to take responsibility for what happens next.
Becoming ancestors of hope
Not all the stories I will carry home from Montgomery are stories of suffering. Some are stories of flourishing, agency and futures being made.
Attending a college football game between Tuskegee and Morehouse, I saw thousands of young Black men and women gathered in celebration, confidence and shared identity. I also spoke with young women from Tuskegee University about their hopes and ambitions. Their confidence reminded me that Black history cannot be told solely through the experience of oppression. It is also a story of achievement, creativity and the determination to shape a different future.
These encounters led me to reflect on the inheritance we receive from those who came before us and the inheritance we will leave for those who follow. Our lives are shaped by history, but we are not simply its passive recipients. Our choices help determine what becomes possible for future generations.
What kind of ancestors are we becoming? What stories will those who come after us inherit? What possibilities will our actions open, or close, for people whose lives we may never know?
As we mark Black History Month, I believe these questions challenge us to move beyond remembrance alone. We must be willing to listen to marginalised voices, tell the truth about the ground on which we stand and confront the structures that continue to diminish the lives and opportunities of others.
For the Church, this means becoming a community that remembers truthfully, practises solidarity and makes room for the flourishing of others. It means recognising that hope is not a comforting alternative to difficult truths, but a practice shaped by how we see, listen and act.
I returned from Montgomery with no easy answers, but with a renewed conviction that we are not only inheritors of history; we are also its authors.
The invitation is not simply to speak about hope, but to become artisans of it, joining a community willing to draw near, listen with ears attuned to suffering and tell the truth without surrendering to despair.
Perhaps this is the deeper invitation of Black History Month: to become, in the quality of our living, ancestors of hope.
Read the full reflection: The Topography of Hope: Reflections from a racial justice pilgrimage to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama
