History isn’t just about looking backward. It’s about knowing where we’re headed next. That’s the central idea historian and author Jemar Tisby explores in his latest book The Spirit of Justice, and it’s the foundation of our conversation today.
“So I recently read somewhere, and of course I have no idea where it was, that historians can’t predict the future, but by studying the past, we find patterns. And those patterns help us live in the present,” Tisby says. “One of the patterns that unfortunately keeps recurring is that for every step, every gesture toward racial progress, there’s always a backlash.”
Tisby explains that history offers a roadmap, a way to see how social movements and power structures evolve.
“Some people would call it a whitelash, but we see this in slave revolts in the 1800s. As soon as that happened, harsher laws were passed to regulate Black bodies and movement. As soon as the Civil War was over and you get this very brief period called Reconstruction, the entire Jim Crow era became a backlash to emancipation and Reconstruction. And of course, we have these historic racial justice uprisings in 2020. No sooner did the calendar turn to 2021 than you get January 6 and an attempted insurrection along with the anti-DEI, anti-CRT, all of that.”
The Role of Faith in the Fight for Justice
Tisby’s work often highlights the intersection of faith and justice, particularly within the Black Christian tradition.
“When I was writing The Color of Compromise, it was largely about white Christians behaving badly when it comes to race,” he says. “That’s the history. But at the same time, as I’m writing all these horrible stories of failure and Christian complicity with racism, I’m also thinking of the other side.”
That other side, he explains, is the Black Christian tradition—one that has historically understood the gospel message as one of liberation.
“There’s something called the Black church, right? And there are people who understood the gospel message as one of liberation, as one of freedom, as one of expansion, not contraction. And I wanted to tell that story too.”
Tisby believes that people often misunderstand the arc of progress.
“I know we look back on the promise of 2020 and in many ways it’s unfulfilled,” he says. “Corporations pledged millions of dollars. My book The Color of Compromise made the bestseller list. Now you can hardly get anyone to pay attention to books about racial justice.”
Despite the setbacks, he argues that 2020 wasn’t a failure.
“It’s never a majority of people who get on board with something like racial justice. It’s always a minority of people who are persuaded and convinced that we need to make progress in this area. And by the way, that’s all it takes—a small number of people making the commitment and the sacrifices that go along with justice for great changes to occur.”
Tisby also acknowledges the frustration of many who feel like change isn’t happening fast enough.
“I hope we can get to the point where it doesn’t take another Black martyr, another Black tragedy for people to get activated,” he says. “You can be proactive about this stuff. You don’t have to wait for the next murder, the next headline, the next whatever.”
The Spirit That Sustains
At the heart of his work is a belief that history informs the present and the future. He shares a story about Merle Evers-Williams, widow of Medgar Evers, the civil rights leader assassinated in 1963. In 2017, she stood in the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum, feet away from the very rifle that killed her husband.
“A journalist asked her, ‘How does now compare to then in terms of civil rights?’” Tisby recounts. “She said she was seeing things she hoped she’d never see again, that there are echoes in the present of the worst parts of our past.”
But she didn’t stop there.
“She said, ‘There’s something about the spirit of justice. It raises you up like a warhorse. Your back becomes stiff, and you become determined all over again.’”
Tisby wants the Church to do the same.
“We need to have the spirit of justice so that no matter what we’re facing, no matter what comes down the line, we can become determined all over again,” he says. “History helps us to see patterns — not necessarily to predict the future — but to situate ourselves in the context and understand that everything has a history and maybe by exploring that history, we can navigate the present and the future more effectively.”
