Keep Marching On

Earlier this week, my family and I went to see the musical Suffs for the second time. We first saw it in previews on Broadway during my 2024 sabbatical, and we were blown away. Now, two years later, the show is touring the country and currently playing at the Blumenthal in Charlotte. The opportunity to see it again was absolutely worth staying out way past our bedtimes on a school night.

Suffs tells the story of the American women’s suffrage movement in the years leading up to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Written by and starring Shaina Taub, the musical dramatizes the lives and tensions among activists such as Alice Paul, Carrie Chapman Catt, and Ida B. Wells.

The music, the dancing, the acting are all wonderful, but what I love most about the show are the themes it raises that are applicable to our own times. The story doesn’t shy away from the complicated and difficult parts of the suffragist history, especially around issues of race, and the question of the most appropriate methodology for reform: polite cooperation or radical disruption? Should we push for incremental change or wholesale change? The character of Ida B. Wells powerfully critiques the racial exclusion within the suffrage movement, revealing how even righteous causes can replicate injustice.

The story reminds us that justice is not always achieved through quiet persuasion; sometimes it demands public resistance that unsettles the status quo. And the work of building a more just and Christlike world is never complete, at least not in our lifetimes. Suffs drives this point home by ending the story not with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, thanks to the vote of one legislator in my home state of Tennessee, but rather with the next generation of leaders continuing the fight for equality and voting rights in their own day. The final song, “Keep Marching” articulates how justice is ongoing journey. I think the lyrics function as a prayer of sorts, and I commend them to you.

Yours in Christ,

Carmen

You won’t live to see the future that you fight for

Maybe no one gets to reach that perfect day

If the work is never over

Then how do you keep marching anyway?

Do you carry your banner as far as you can?

Rewriting the world with your imperfect pen?

’Til the next stubborn girl picks it up in a picket line over and over again?

And you join in the chorus of centuries chanting to her.

[Chorus]

The path will be twisted and risky and slow

But keep marching, keep marching

Will you fail or prevail? Well, you may never know

But keep marching, keep marching

’Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need

That progress is possible, not guaranteed

It will only be made if we keep marching, keep marching on.

And remember every mother that you came from

Learned as much from our success as our mistakes

Don’t forget you’re merely one of many others

On the journey every generation makes

We did not end injustice and neither will you

But still, we made strides, so we know you can too

Make peace with our incomplete power and use it for good

’Cause there’s so much to do.

[Chorus]

The gains will feel small and the losses too large

Keep marching, keep marching

You’ll rarely agree with whoever’s in charge

Keep marching, keep marching

’Cause your ancestors are all the proof you need

That progress is possible, not guaranteed

It will only be made if we keep marching, keep marching on.

[Chorus]

Yes, the world can be changed, ’cause we’ve done it before

So keep marching, keep marching

We’re always behind you, so bang down the door

And keep marching, keep marching

And let history sound the alarm of how

The future demands that we fight for it now

It will only be ours if we keep marching, keep marching on.