The Call of the Ancestral Samaritan

You delight in laying down laws, Yet you delight more in breaking them....Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers.....But while you build your sand-towers the

ocean brings more sand to the shore.... But what of those to whom life is not an ocean, and man-made laws are not sand-castles...... -- Kahlil Gibran

As they descended, I reached up in amazement to touch the clouds all around, only to realize I was grasping at water formed from puddles on the ground.  Then the wind whispered' "ain't gravity and time ancient beasts that bound? Surely, what goes up must come down." -- Dr. Johnnie C. Larrie (Esq.)

When it comes to laws that have [re]formed and advanced social justice practice over the last half decade, we are in free-fall. But this is not new. Many social justice practitioners existing in these spaces are shaken by the pace at which a fragile justice system seems to be fracturing along its already frayed edges. Yet, others of us choose to move calmly in our ancestral calling from the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall -- "You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.

African-Americans are practiced in the art of working in fragile legal spaces. Laws be damned. We are oriented always towards digging deeper ditches to avoid the piercing shrapnel of social [in]justice. We welcome those ditches; we know instinctively, they give us cover to recede and lay our backs against the protective cool darkness. And in that darkness, we whisper into our grandchildren's ears the same strategies whispered in our ears long ago. Why the same strategies? Because, we have the same struggles -- the substantive imperfections of man-made laws never designed to set us completely free.

We move, but not out of fear for what is happening around us and to us -- as the soft protective covering of laws fall away. We move to a rhythmed dance of ancestral recognition to do right. That dance tells us, "in pausing at all, we lose the cover of a North Star that gave its brightest light in darkness to those hidden among the trees, waiting for a chance to break towards freedom." For African-Americans as a collective in this America, it has always been "do or die." There was never going to be comfort in waiting for children on beaches to build sand-castles, while man-made laws gave sway to social [in]justice outcomes.

There is a history of doing right in early civil rights struggles. Writer, Langston Hughes, "poetified," the urgency of now, "....I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread."[1] The Late U.S. House Representative John Lewis called doing right, "good trouble, necessary trouble." Harriet Tubman remarked on the rightness of her escapes to freedom, “I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.”[2] No man-made laws guided those efforts to endure in the face of social justice struggle that lacked the support of law. In fact, those efforts where bold breaks from the law.

So the concept of doing right or moving towards social justice, absent supportive law, is not new to African Americans. We understood, "our ancestors could not and did not wait for existing laws to break the rhythmic chains of slavery." The choices were, to do right and let the law catch up or die....And many did die, but not because they waited for the cover of law. This is why, for African-American communities, the panic for the things occurring today -- if there is panic at all -- exists below the social radar. Ancestral drumbeats never go away. We hear them -- even when we sit in deeply dug ditches planning measured escapes to freedom.

Therefore, it is not surprising to me, that Justice Marshall appeared to offer a bold social justice strategy that did not pace with existing laws. In those days (and years) leading up to Brown v. Board of Education,[3] he well understood, what the law justified as being separate, would never be equal in practice. But it was not the gravitas of those long lived moments of law-based unequalness that built momentum towards the Brown decision. Rather, it was the will of a collective to move in those broad spaces of [in]justice, without certainty of outcome and certainly without clear support from standard interpretations of existing laws.

From that collective will, the laws giving rise to Separate but Equal precipitated -- only to puddle on the ground and [re]form into an integrative but fragile framework of equality for K-12 public education. Still, we are not there yet. And listen....We may not get there in the lifetime of those reading this statement. Out of a necessity and a need for continued vigilance, advocacy endures around K-12 public education. And this advocacy sits still against the backdrop of the Brown decision, even as that decision continues to fracture around its legal edges.

While it is true that, what was separate pre-Brown was certainly unequal, the practice of "inseparteness" now has not ended that unequalness. But this recognition is not a call to give up, it is a call for us to always move boldly in our efforts to secure social justice measures and outcomes -- even without the cover of laws to aid us in this long journey. The call to, do what we believe is right, and let the law catch up, lives with us -- likely always. But perhaps we must add...."and if the law does not look like it will catch up in our lifetime, do it anyway." In African-American communities, there has always been a collective and ancestral drumbeat towards that recognition.

Thus the artistic brilliance of James Baldwin, who noted, "The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it."[4] Thus the political prescience of U.S. House Representative, John Lewis, who said, "Our struggle....is the struggle of a lifetime.[5] And thus the soulful equanimity of Zora Neale Hurston, who poetically noted, "No, I do not weep at the world, I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife."[6]  We know better than to reach for the clouds, because we know we would only be grasping at water formed from puddles on the ground. 

In this moment of legal fragility around our quest for social justice, we are required to lean forward and make our spaces. We are required to recognize the longevity and the constancy of social justice struggle. And most importantly, we are required to move in the creation of those spaces amidst struggle, without despairing and while imaginatively carving out a pearled future. All this we must do, regardless of what law does or does not support. It is the way of the Ancestral Samaritan.[7] It is that desire to do right -- even when it takes you off course, does not comport with a structured set of rules, and creates uncertain risk to you.

In Biblical teachings, it is an act of Mercy of the highest order. In this day, as in past days, we are called upon to pause and reflect on the circumstances of others because we travel those roads with them. In so doing, we must resist becoming "Priests and Levites" in these times. We must assume the status of "outsiders" in ways that allow us to move [un]comfortably without the cover of law. We must resist structured engagement -- that sometimes binds us to behave like children on the beach building sand-castles. We must travel closely enough to the painful lives of others and offer assistance -- even when the break in recognized tradition and that offer of assistance make us "legally suspect." And "law" or the lack thereof should never stand in the way of us seeking both the means and ends of social justice.  (working blog subject to edits)

© 2026 Dr. Johnnie C. Larrie (Esq.)/Legacy Bridge NC. All rights reserved.

No part of this document or the document series may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author. Please send permission requests to jlarrie@legacybridgenc.org.

[1] Democracy

[2] Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park

[3] Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)

[4] Stated in a letter to his friend and editor Sol Stein (1957)

[5] Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America.

[6] How It Feels To Be Colored Me

[7] Gospel of Luke 10:25–29 (KJV)