Following all of the news developments of this historic moment for our nation has me reflecting a lot, especially today on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. Recurring in my mind is the memory of a critical moment that struck me like a lightning bolt years ago. It was during my early weeks of law school in 2008. I was seated in the University of Wisconsin Law Library’s Quarles & Brady Reading Room, cite checking for the Wisconsin Law Review. Stark in my memory is the image I included that comes from that room. My personal moment took place while looking at the mural, almost precisely as it is pictured here, seated at one of the tables shown in the foreground. The mural is “Freeing of the Slaves” by John Steuart Curry.
First, it’s important to know there’s a story of “Freeing of the Slaves,” as noted by the University on its 75th Anniversary. [O]riginally intended for the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington DC, [the mural] was refused due to the “racial implications of the subject matter…” However, the design caught the attention of then-Law School dean Lloyd Garrison, grandson of famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison…writing “Here is one of the great events in our constitutional history, an event fashioned in the midst of a national crisis by a great lawyer-president. The mural not only symbolizes that event but proclaims in a noble and patriotic setting the dignity and freedom of all persons, however humble, in a democracy whose ideals of liberty are summed up and protected by the constitution.”
Many years before attending law school, I had the incredibly good fortune of meeting Representative John Lewis. He is a U.S. Congressman from Georgia, and former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who worked closely with Dr. King. A most dignified and gentle man, he had taken the time to speak to a bunch of midwestern, mostly white and very naive college students about his passion for justice and something he called ‘good trouble.’ In his words during a speech years later, “History will not be kind to us. So you have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate, to speak up, speak out and get in good trouble…You can do it. You must do it. Not just for yourselves but for generations yet unborn.”
Indeed, history will continue to judge ‘We the People’ and all self-professed protectors of the constitution, both past and present. As demonstrated by the story of Freeing of the Slaves; there will be a totality of circumstances by which our commitment to freedom and justice was tested; and the lines of continuity and culpability will be drawn.
Before going back to school for interior design, I first went to law school in the spirit of embracing ‘good trouble’ and finding myself on the right side of history. I looked to the halls of justice to help me fulfill my mission. Like most 1Ls, I was ecstatic and partly terrified to be in law school. I attributed my increasing dissatisfaction to getting familiar with the realities of being a law student. That ‘thunderbolt moment’ I mentioned however was very different. Better understood today, it was the creator/artist who hammered a warning into my heart. She told me that while it was a noble goal for many, practicing law to defeat injustice was not going to be my path to changing anything but myself–and not in a good way.
Looking back, I know it was good trouble that had already put me on the path to law school in the first place. I was not looking to find good trouble in becoming a lawyer; I was trying to protect myself from it. As someone who would always speak the often very ugly truth to power throughout my life, trouble had no problem finding me. It was the artist and the creator in me who would always seek the truth and had the courage to speak it. It was the artist that I learned to fear through the pain of personal sacrifice and tried to defeat by becoming a lawyer. By going to law school I was in the process of litigating my own choices in life and I was on the path to permanently incarcerate the artist within me. She was the one who simultaneously demanded and deserved justice; I needed to protect her instead of trying to ‘lock her up.’
The rest of this story is my own history in the making. I am happy to finally be whole and to be free; with an ever-fervent desire that freedom and justice come to all. I hope the spirit of this very important holiday brings you an opportunity to reflect as well.
Sara L. Hinkel, M.S.Ed. 