As Nelson Mandela is finally laid to rest, we face the challenge of honoring his legacy.
It's a challenge beyond finding eloquent words to eulogize a man whose name is synonymous with courage, justice and equality for all. As President Obama noted during Mandela's memorial service, the South African president's death puts an important question before each of us: "[H]ow well have I applied his lessons in my own life?"
The question can leave us feeling inadequate. Mandela's extraordinary sacrifice to realize his dream of a free South Africa can easily make us question whether the small steps we take in our own lives to promote social justice actually make a difference. But we shouldn't feel that way. Mandela taught the world that "ordinary" people can bring about extraordinary change. We learned the same lesson from the American civil rights movement.
Mandela once said, "A fundamental concern for others in our individual and community lives would go a long way in making the world the better place we so passionately dreamt of." We should take this lesson to heart, because it acknowledges an important truth: The biggest threat to a society isn't injustice but complacency in the face of injustice.
We honor Mandela when we stand up for social justice. We honor him when we break down social barriers that allow prejudice and suspicion to fester. We honor him when we reach out to others with a helping hand. Most importantly, we honor him when we keep fighting for justice even after we encounter failure.
Mandela understood the power of people of conscience. He understood how one person taking a stand can spark a movement that transforms a society. It should be no surprise that when he first visited the United States, he insisted on meeting Rosa Parks. Though Montgomery, Ala., and Johannesburg, South Africa, are continents apart, he recognized how standing against injustice or helping others can send what Robert Kennedy, in his Cape Town speech, called a "tiny ripple of hope" across the globe. These ripples of hope, Kennedy said in 1966, can together "build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."
The Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery recognizes this power by featuring more than just the stories and images of the martyrs of the civil rights movement. The memorial center includes images of the leaders and foot soldiers of contemporary struggles for justice, including Mandela. These are not disparate movements confined to one place or time. They are one movement across the world, one movement for justice that marches forward every time a voice rises up to say, "No more."
Now that Mandela is gone, we must ensure that the march for justice continues wherever bigotry and discrimination lurks. It must continue for the LGBT community that still strives for equality. It must continue for workers exploited across the globe. It must continue for children unfairly pushed into our broken juvenile justice system, and for others facing injustice and inequality. But the march for justice can only continue if we marry our ideals to action and raise our voices for justice. This is the path forward. This is the legacy of Madiba.