Fred Sneesby - Observations on Culture, Faith and Politics

Evil and the Passage of Time

January 26, 2007

I heard the voice of Charles Eddie Moore’s brother, Thomas, on the radio talking about his satisfaction with the arrest of the man who tortured and killed Charles. Thomas spoke as if it had happened this past year. Charles Eddie Moore was killed in 1964.

That’s a really long time ago. Almost forty-three years since the day of the murder. The radio report went on to describe the killing and the circumstances surrounding it. Then it became clear how evil that act was, not just the taking of two human lives (a young man named Henry Hezekiah Dee was murdered along with Charles), but also an assault on the human rights of a whole race, an attack against the principle of justice in our society. The passage of forty-three years did not make that act of violence any less evil.

Forty-three years is a long time for a person to seek the truth and to right a wrong. That’s what Thomas Moore did, though. He searched and searched for the people who had been implicated in testimony given in 1964 until he found one who was still alive and now that man, James Ford Seale, has been arrested and will face trial. The case had been “settled” by the courts long ago but Thomas knew that human life had been disrespected, truth had been ignored, and justice had been mocked. So he stuck with it.

Thomas Moore has said that he persevered because he carried a burden of guilt for not being there for his brother, for not doing something to save him. That feeling is not logical, of course, but his sense of responsibility does ring true. His has been a brother’s debt that is now paid. Thomas Moore’s faithfulness has not only brought about a personal triumph for himself and his family, it has also brought healing to national wounds and victory to the ongoing cause of racial equality.

Thirty-four years is not as long as forty-three. A thirty-four year struggle to right a wrong has a ways to go to match Thomas Moore’s dedication. If anyone involved in this effort is tired after thirty-four years or has despaired of its chances to succeed or is less fervent because so many have moved on thinking that the courts have settled the matter long ago, then maybe they need to learn a lesson from Thomas Moore. If the passage of time has made the evil of an event from thirty-four years ago seem bland or without far-reaching and devastating effects for our society, let us be shaken by seeing the vitality evil retains through the decades.

It was thirty-four years ago that the U.S. Supreme Court promulgated the Roe v. Wade decision and began the quick march that has led us to the point at which it is perfectly legal in the United States for a person to destroy a developing human life for any reason or for no reason. The anniversary is marked by die-hards: “pro-life” demonstrators who frighten the general populace by their gruesome campaign and the “pro-choice” counter-demonstrators who astound us by their cold denial of the realities of abortion. Outside of them, I’m not sure how many US citizens give it much thought.

The people who crowd onto the buses at churches up and down the east coast in order to pray on the Capitol steps are the Thomas Moore’s of this struggle. They are ignored. They are belittled. They make most of us uneasy. Their sloganeering invites contempt. But they are still out there saying, “hey, do you realize what happened in 1973?!”

There are other Thomas Moore’s in the struggle: concentric circles of involved: local right-to-life groups, lawyers who argue cases, legislators who sponsor bills, ordinary people who cling to a belief in the sanctity of human life, the many who are fighting the tide of extreme individualism and materialism that is at the heart of the pro-abortion movement. Every one of these who are choosing life should remember Charles Moore and his faithful brother and take heart.

It is very important to realize here in 2007 that the issue of abortion is not at the periphery of our cultural and political life. It cuts to the very core of what it means to be a civil society, a moral people, a nation in which everyone has standing no matter her status, ability, possession, or appearance. Those who would call themselves “pro-life” need to get bolder. We should not settle for sidebars about parental notification or right-to-know laws. It is our duty to keep saying in every way possible that as a nation we need to decide at which point human life deserves the protection of the law. We need to insist that developing human life matters to us as a society and that its fate is not subject to an individual’s whim and that its worth is not calculated by how useful it may be or how much another is invested in it but is, instead, grounded in standards established by human reason.

That awful incident in May of 1964 was not only about the deaths of Charles and Henry. It was about race in the United States and whether or not our society and our laws would establish principle and practice to protect human rights in this country. Thomas Moore’s long vigil to bring the murderer to justice has a profound effect on everyone who must fight for a secure and respected life. The struggle to extend the protection of the law to unborn human life is not just about individual fetuses, it is also about the dignity and value of all human life, it is about revering human relationships and the obligations that arise from them, it is about insisting that right and wrong are not determined by caprice or power but by reason and law. Much is at stake so let us be faithful.