Bending The Arc Toward Justice

(UND Today photo)

(UND Today) – When winter weather forced the cancellation of his public lecture at UND, Yohuru Williams — distinguished university chair and professor of history at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul — instead sat down for a one-on-one conversation with Tamba-Kuii Bailey, UND’s associate vice president for Community and Belonging. What unfolded was a wide-ranging reflection on the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., and what it means to live out King’s call to “rediscover lost values” today.

At the heart of the conversation was a central question: How do we make King’s life and work relevant now?

Williams urges listeners to move beyond what he calls a “snapshot” understanding of King — one frozen in the 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. King, he notes, evolved over time, especially in his growing focus on poverty and economic justice.

To “rediscover” King is to study his full body of work, including his final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, and to see him as a human being who wrestled with doubt, bias and limitation while remaining committed to justice.