There are two general themes to society. The first is stay and work to change systems, culture, attitudes, beliefs, hearts, minds. This is your argument. It is hard work, as you well know. It certainly applies to what you are saying - stay and work to change the South. It also applies to other things well - stay and change the church. Stay and change the attitudes and beliefs wherever you are. Stay and change hearts and minds of the community. Stay and change local governments and school boards. Stand and change businesses doing business. I don't know if you are familiar with the prophets of the Old Testament, but in a sense, their mission was this - to stay and change the situation. Often their methods were such that they could not be avoided. They showed people the reality of what they were doing, and made it plain. They said, if you continue on your path, it ends in ruin. Change! You don't have to do things the way they have been done.

The second theme is run where it is safer. Build a better life. There is certainly comfort in this message. And some people just need to do this. It can be tiring staying and working to change things. It can be exhausting and we ultimately have little to show for it so very often.

But the problem with running to safety is that cruelty is never satisfied with staying contained. It always wants more. And where we run to will eventually have to deal with it. And will we run again? At some point you run out of places to run.

I'm reminded of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who had the option of staying in the US and escaping his home of Nazi Germany for good. Friends encouraged him to stay. But he felt called to go back. If good people don't go and try to change things for the better, evil just spreads. And that decision is costly. But it is based on something deep - that a place, and people, are worth it. Cruelty doesn't believe in worth and value. It believes in control and order. And it is not sustainable.

Fight the good fight Gwen. You are not alone.