The Legacy of Civil Rights and the Opportunity for Transactional Law Clinics

At the end of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously paraphrased abolitionist and Unitarian minister Theodore Parker stating, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” The implication of the phrase is that the social justice goals of the Civil Rights Movement would eventually be achieved. His prayer was that servants of justice would be rewarded in due time. In other words, that the goals of the Civil Rights Movement would be achievable at some point in the future. President Obama resurrected the phrase throughout his presidential campaign and throughout his presidency.

The President was so taken with the phrase that he even had the quote woven into the presidential rug in the Oval Office during his tenure in the White House.