Why is remembering American history so hard? It’s a question that needs an answer because Black history is American history, and federal agencies decided to ban Black History Month.
Black history isn’t just Black history. It’s a record of our constant battle between order and justice. To erase it is to erase the struggle that defines our national identity. It may be easier to maintain a neat, sanitized version of our history than to confront the struggle and resistance justice demands, but that ease is detrimental to America.
If remembering Black history is too difficult, maybe we should turn to the one document that defines our national values. Every state in the Union agreed with the verbiage. You’d think it would offer clarity.
But even there, justice and order are locked in a constant struggle. The Constitution sets both as national goals, side by side. Then, history demonstrates again and again how the ideals clash and how essential they are to each other.
Justice Disrupts Order, and Order Suppresses Justice
Last week, we discussed the inherent tension between justice and order. Ensuring domestic tranquility and establishing justice are two of our six national goals, but they are often at odds.
Tranquility means a society built on order, stability, and mutual respect. Tranquility is a deliberate national choice to maintain a collective structure.
Justice is the foundation for a society in which individuals can fulfill their roles and contribute to the nation’s well-being. It includes fair and equal treatment under the law, equal access to individual opportunity, and equitable distribution of resources like education, healthcare, and housing.
Justice threatens order. We build institutions and cultural norms around systems that offer stability but perpetuate inequality and power imbalance. Calls for justice expose inherent flaws. They challenge the status quo.
Order threatens justice. While order is necessary for social stability, the rigid pursuit of order obstructs justice. Groups in power preserve the status quo instead of addressing systemic imbalances. They argue that stability must be maintained at all costs. This focus on order suppresses dissent and marginalizes groups that call for reform.
No American better embodies the tension between justice and order than the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
But to really understand the challenge of justice, order, and Dr. King, we need to first understand Reverend Billy Graham.
Billy Graham Believed in Order
In 1954, TIME Magazine called Reverend Billy Graham “the best-known, most talked-about Christian leader in the world today, barring the Pope.” US presidents sought his council. He became the moral advisor to the nation.
By 1957, Graham was at the height of his influence as America’s most prominent evangelist. That year marked his landmark New York City Crusade. The 16-week revival held at Madison Square Garden drew massive crowds. Over two million people attended, and more than 60,000 responded to his call for conversion.
Graham’s sermons emphasized personal salvation and moral living. His message resonated with many Americans wrestling with Cold War anxiety and social change. It offered comfort in uncertain times.
During this crusade, Graham crossed paths with a young reverend, Martin Luther King Jr., for the first time. Graham hoped to expand the reach of his message to a broader audience and invited King to speak in New York. King spoke of a brotherhood that transcended race and color. He hoped alliances with influential figures like Graham could accelerate the fight for civil rights.
By 1960, differences between the two men’s approaches emerged. Graham made it clear he valued social order above civil disobedience. He stated…
“I do believe that we have a responsibility to obey the law. Otherwise, you have anarchy. And, no matter what that law may be—it may be an unjust law—I believe we have a Christian responsibility to obey it.”
There it is. Order versus justice.
Graham wasn’t just preaching personal salvation—he was tapping into a national desire for stability in a time of upheaval. For many, his message was a soothing alternative to the discomfort of systemic injustice.
Graham’s stance reflected the views of many Americans at the time. They were uncomfortable with the confrontational approach of the Civil Rights movement. They preferred order to justice. Graham’s supporters argue he wasn’t racist. They argue he was called to a mission focused on personal salvation rather than political activism. His critics argue that his reluctance to challenge unjust laws reflected a failure to meet the moral urgency of the moment.
No matter the reason, his line was drawn by April 1963. As Graham envisioned order, King led the Birmingham Campaign. This bold, nonviolent movement targeted deep-rooted segregation and racial injustice in one of America’s most racially divided cities.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
In April 1963, Birmingham, Alabama, was the most violently racist city in the United States. Its aggressive resistance to desegregation earned it the nickname “Bombingham” due to the frequent bombings of Black homes and churches by white supremacists. From 1945 to 1962, white supremacists conducted 50 racially motivated bombings of Black American homes, businesses, and churches.
They bombed the home of Reverend Milton Curry Jr. on August 2, 1949. The home of Monroe and Mary Means Monk on December 21, 1950. The home of the minister of Bethel Baptist Church, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, on December 24, 1956. The Ku Klux Klan bombed Bethel Baptist Church on June 29, 1958. It was the second time the Klan had bombed the church.
On and on. 50 bombings.
Amid the years of bombings, Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor led the city government to openly enforce Jim Crow laws with brutal tactics. They used police dogs, fire hoses, and mass arrests to suppress civil rights demonstrations.
Quite a backdrop.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Birmingham, Alabama, on April 3, 1963, to lead the Birmingham Campaign. It was the season of the major Christian holiday of Easter. On Easter, Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his love for humanity. We remember our vow to love God and love others.
King’s Birmingham Campaign included nonviolent protests against segregation and racial injustice. King and other activists planned sit-ins, marches, and boycotts targeting businesses that upheld segregation.
On April 10, 1963, Circuit Judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit of Alabama W. A. Jenkins, Jr. issued an injunction prohibiting the demonstrations.
King and others chose to defy the order. They viewed it as an unjust law meant to suppress their Constitutional rights. On April 12, Good Friday, the day Christians remember the Romans putting Christ to death, authorities arrested King and at least 55 other leaders for “parading without a permit.” King spent 9 days in jail. They loved him so much they denied him even his phone call.
While in jail, King read a public letter from eight white Alabama clergymen who criticized the protests as “unwise and untimely.” They urged activists to seek justice through the courts rather than the streets.
King wrote his response to the letter in the margins of a newspaper and on scraps of paper smuggled in by friends. The pieces became the iconic Letter from Birmingham Jail. In it, King defends civil disobedience and highlights the moral urgency of confronting injustice.
King explicitly calls out Americans who are “more devoted to order than to justice; who prefer a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.”
There it is again. Order versus justice.
…
Let’s reestablish that this is not a Black history topic. This is a Constitutional topic. This is the interlocked American history of Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. Just as we have a national goal to ensure order, we have a national goal to establish justice.
Order and justice. Two ideals, forever competing. Let’s pause for a minute and honor the genius of Gouverneur Morris, Pennsylvania delegate to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, who wrote the Preamble; the founding fathers that agreed to the verbiage; and each state in the Union for ratifying the document. Together, they laid out national goals that were almost impossible to achieve. They understood the delicate balance needed to hold a diverse and divided nation together.
In the ultimate irony, they placed the words establishing justice and ensuring domestic tranquility side by side in the Preamble.
They knew a society striving for justice would inevitably disrupt the status quo. We would challenge entrenched power. It would create tension. At the same time, they recognized that without order, society could descend into chaos. Chaos makes justice impossible to sustain. This tension is a feature of the system. The struggle forces every generation to wrestle with competing ideals.
Each principle threatens the other. But that’s not why they are next to each other in the Constitution.
They’re next to each other because each value is essential to achieve the other.
Justice Enables Order
Justice sets the conditions for trust. In an environment of justice, people trust that they have rights, that those rights are protected, and that fairness governs social interactions. They trust that they are treated equitably, regardless of race, class, or background.
In a just society, people respect the rules and institutions that govern their lives. Justice fosters legitimacy, and legitimacy is the foundation of stable, lasting order.
Enforcing order without justice is impossible. Without justice, any semblance of order is fragile. Authorities may attempt to maintain control through fear, repression, or coercion, but this “order” is unsustainable. It breeds resentment, resistance, and unrest. A society that values individuals, respects rights, and offers real opportunities for prosperity doesn’t need to police itself into submission.
Back to Birmingham in 1963. Authorities claimed they were maintaining order, but that “order” depended on segregation, discrimination, and suppression. It wasn’t order—it was controlled instability. The American people’s demand for justice didn’t just disrupt order—it exposed what many called ‘order’ was a system built on oppression.
On the surface, one might assume that justice threatens order. But justice and order are not rivals. Justice isn’t just compatible with order—it’s the only thing that makes order possible.
As justice enables order, order sustains justice.
Order Sustains Justice
Order is necessary to sustain justice. Justice requires a strong institution of structure, law, and social framework to establish and maintain it. Without order, these systems collapse. This collapse makes it impossible to protect individual rights, ensure fairness, or maintain trust in governance.
History demonstrates that righteous justice movements rely on some level of structure to succeed.
Back again to Birmingham in 1963. The Civil Rights Movement made lasting change in the nation. But dismantling segregation depended on legal victories, organized protests, and strategic leadership. Without disciplined nonviolent resistance combined with a functioning legal system to challenge unjust laws, racial justice would have remained an ideal rather than a reality.
Even when we achieve justice, we still have a duty to preserve it. A just society cannot exist in a constant state of upheaval. Laws must be enforced, rights must be protected, and institutions must remain strong to prevent injustice from creeping back in. Without order, justice is fleeting. It becomes a moment of fairness swallowed by instability.
Justice corrects and refines order, but order provides the structure that allows justice to endure.
American History
Justice and order are not Black history. They are American history.
They are the interlocked American history of Reverend Billy Graham, who believed in order, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who knew order was not possible without justice.
This is a Constitutional topic. Just as we have a national goal to maintain order, we have a national goal to establish justice.
Today, we continue to struggle with order and justice. We will always struggle with order and justice. History demonstrates again and again how the ideals clash.
When we look deeper, we see how essential they are to each other. There is no order without justice. We cannot sustain justice without order.
We don’t have to do it in February every year, but if we don’t study Black history, how will we remember American history?
May God bless the United States of America.
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