On May 17, the anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, four college students challenged the nation when they sat down in an act of civil disobedience outside Senator John McCain's office in Tuscon.

My beloved city, Phoenix, is making a fantastic run at being the punch line in the larger immigration drama. I wish we were focused on a less volatile campaign, working toward getting the Olympics or something.

Certain moments in our nation's history have consistently opened the door for the least civil voices to enact evil through civil policy: think the institution of race-based U.S. slavery, the Indian removals, Jim Crow laws, legalized segregation, the federal protection of lynching mobs, and, don't forget, the Japanese internment camps, among others.

The law signed today by Arizona Gov. Brewer is a social and racial sin, and should be denounced as such by people of faith and conscience across the nation.

The world is stubborn. It changes its thinking at a glacial pace. People fear change, and they come to hate what they fear. Powerful interests do not want to lose or to share power. The work of social justice, of affecting positive change requires persistent commitment and radical love that gives one the energy to continue the work across decades.