for this week’s installation of I wish I could show you the astonishing light of your being, here are four beautiful lights snuffed out so early to shine eternally in consciousness…

fifty-four years ago on this very sunday, a horrific bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama took the lives of these four astonishing lights…

shocking the nation and the world, their tragic deaths marked a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement, ultimately, contributing to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964… instead of provoking a race war, Birmingham Sunday rallied people from around the globe to support the civil rights cause…

today, racist rhetoric is on the rise and terror and violence are once again being used but now, as then, millions of people are standing in love for justice…

 in memory of all astonishing lights paving the way for critical progress, we must continue moving forward and bending the arc of the universe towards justice…