Echo
The arc
A metaphor that escaped its sermon. Parker’s arc is long. Douglass will not wait politely for it. King, a century later, speaks as if the bend can be worked.
1 · Theodore Parker
I do not pretend to understand the moral universe. The arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.Douglass had already said that power does not move because a metaphor is beautiful.
2 · Frederick Douglass
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.King keeps Parker’s image and puts his children inside it.
3 · Martin Luther King Jr.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.