12 Years a Slave: The Long Arc of Justice (Amos 5:24)

In 12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup—a free Black man kidnapped into slavery—survives twelve years of horror. The injustice is so vast it seems unstoppable, a river of evil. Amos cried: "Let justice roll down like waters." But for Solomon, injustice was what rolled down. Yet he survives, is eventually freed, and testifies. His story becomes a tributary feeding the river of justice that would—generations later—swell into abolition, civil rights, ongoing struggle. Justice rolls slowly, over decades and centuries. Solomon couldn't see the ocean his suffering would reach. Neither can we. We add our drops to the stream.