The Urgent Call of Justice

While working as a photographer for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s and 1940s, Dorothea Lange documented the plight of the poor and forgotten, especially migrants, sharecroppers, and displaced farm families. Most people are familiar with her iconic photo of Florence Owens Thompson called “Migrant Mother.” I recently came across the following quote by Lange: “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.”

From one perspective, this comment can remind us not to take our work and our many blessings, such as sight, for granted. If we knew we would lose our vision tomorrow, think of the urgency with which we would gaze upon our loved ones today. Integrating gratitude into our lives is perhaps the best way to be more conscious of the gifts of life and savor them.

Lange’s comment also can spur us to urgency in working for justice in our world. In the recent rioting in Minneapolis, a freelance photographer named Linda Tirado literally was stricken blind in her left eye when she was hit by a rubber bullet. At the time she was using her camera to document the outcome of injustice—to open our eyes to the desperation of a persecuted people who feel they have no other recourse but to march in the street to make themselves seen and heard.

When injustice is allowed to fester, violence erupts. We need to use every tool at our disposal—cameras, the vote, prayer, outreach by our faith communities, education, our voices—to stop the killing and economic suppression of people of color. Jesus spent his years of ministry reaching out to the marginalized: lepers, women, poor people, and those oppressed by the political power structure of the day. That is what you do when you know and love God. And because we are not promised tomorrow, we need to do it today.