A: It starts with the quote by Harold J. Berman. That thought-provoking description explains how we think about the particular theme of justice, and it reveals the approach to everything that we do. It makes us a vessel to demonstrate that something beyond, to prepare its witnesses, and to train its guides. With this quite particular dynamic, it is easy to understand why we say The Arc of Justice is a response to a call.

A: January 29, 2018, officially. But the idea started back in 2012 on a sixth-grade filed trip.

A: The Arc began with one simple thought. Our founder Derrick Alexander Pope had an idea to develop a cultural exhibit that would pay tribute to the heroic and vital contribution lawyers and judges made to the civil rights movement. The idea gained traction as part of a working group within the State Bar of Georgia Committee to Promote Inclusion in the Profession. In 2017, Vernon E. Jordan was named National Honorary Chairman for the initiative, and he continued in this role until his passing in 2021. (We still reserve that in memoriam designation in his honor).

A: We established Hidden Legal Figures: Conversations with the Unsung as a way to promote the exhibit, and we began our partnership with the law schools throughout Georgia, who served as hosts for these programs. The following year, we created Hidden Legal Figures: The Podcast, and in our first year we were rated in the top 20 of historical podcasts by BuzzFeed. 

A: Yes, but the pandemic disrupted our plans. Like everything and everyone else, we were forced to pause, but we used that time to consider what more we wanted to do and be. We still have plans for the cultural exhibit, but we are weaving together a new thread to the idea.

A: We are continuing the podcast, but we have plans to add a visual medium; something like, but not quite, a documentary. The Ex+Change is our signature ideas symposium, which will make its debut in 2026, and we are developing a legal fellowship program as a component of what we intend to grow out of the symposium.

A: From the familiar quote, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Most people know the quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but it is actually from an 1853 book of sermons by Theodore Parker. The actual guote is “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight, I can divine it by conscience. But from what I can see, I am sure that it bends toward justice. Things refuse to be mismanaged long.”