This is a story about Assisi and Alabama.

They say that Francis of Assisi was so in love with God that he would stop and preach the gospel to the birds. I have always loved that image. In fact, there is an icon depicting this scene that hangs on the wall next to my bed. It shows an individual who is so God-intoxicated—to borrow a phrase from Martin Luther King, Jr.—that he wants to every creature to hear about the wondrous love that has captured him.

When John Lewis was a child, he apparently ministered in a similar way. Before he sought to make his life an instrument of peace during the civil rights movement, Lewis was the son of sharecroppers in the Deep South. On the farm, he would preach to the chickens. They were his congregation. He presided over their marriages, gave eulogies at their funerals, and baptized them.

What I love in those two pictures is the profound love of God and of God’s creation. They show individuals who see the world as an audience for the transforming love of God. Francis embodied the credo of preaching the gospel at all times even when words are not used. Though his childhood nickname was “Preacher,” Rep. Lewis did not serve in that vocation as an adult. But he preached. He put his life on the line believing that God’s love and justice was for all from birds to the people terrorized by a sinful system.

There are multiple times when EA and I were watching Hamilton last night when I felt my heart expand inside me. To be sure some of those moments revolve around the musical’s beautiful snapshots of love, camaraderie, parenthood, and forgiveness.

Yet there are also moments—primarily in “My Shot” and “Yorktown”—in which my heart swelled with pride for my country. As you see brave women and men of all ethnicities struggle for one another’s freedoms, you cannot help but think, “This is what it should be like.”

“Should be” is the operative phrase and it always has been. Hamilton is historical fiction (If you have a friend who is non-ironically wet blanketing people with this fact, pray for them because they don’t have much fun in life). With People of Color playing the founders of this nation, it is consciously more concerned with the Idea of America, where that idea has failed, and the continued struggle for it today.

The first thing you must know is that you need to hear the stories. You and I cannot begin to understand, but their stories help. You need to hear of the deep wounds; not for your edification but because you need to know this is happening. You need to feel the heat from righteous anger. You need to hear the exhaustion. A child should not be so tired yet when you hear the stories you know why they are tired.

A child. That was one of the reasons why we felt drawn towards this protest; that we told our youth that we’d be there if they were there. This protest was organized by six high school girls: Jade Fuller, Nya Collins, Zee Thomas, Kennedy Green, Emma Rose Smith, and Mikayla Smith. Six young women dreamed this and it conjured 10,000 people to downtown Nashville. These young women led. They shared their hurt. They bared their souls. They told a crowd of thousands that this would be a peaceful protest and thousands followed their lead. These six want peace. They want justice. They don’t want to see one more death.

You need to hear them. You need to listen to the catch in their throat. You need to hear the spoken word performance from a young man in which he shares what it is like to grow up in this country as a black man. It will nearly rip your heart out just as it did mine. The only thing that kept it tethered to my chest was this young man’s beaming friend standing behind him full of pride. You need to hear that the world is vastly different for him than it is for you. Maybe you know that, but knowing and hearing are two different things. You need to hear these young leaders map out something better than what was handed to them.

When the Ku Klux Klan was trying to recruit new members in post-World War II United States, the Anti-Defamation League reached out to the producers of the massively popular Superman radio show and proposed a story that pitted the organization as villains against the Man of Steel. The 16-part series “The Clan of the Fiery Cross” was a ratings hit and seriously damaged the Klan’s recruitment efforts and membership numbers. The way this superhero radio serial dealt a blow to hatred is an awesome example of why stories are so powerful.

Last year, MacArthur Foundation Fellow Gene Luen Yang and the artist cohort Gurihiru adapted this 1946 radio story into the graphic novel Superman Smashes the Klan. My parents shipped it to me last week as a birthday present and I loved it. The only way this mixture of superheroes, justice issues, and American history could be more in my wheelhouse is if it featured a lengthy scene in which Superman and Jimmy Olsen discussed theology.

The graphic novel has not been far from my mind since I finished it. The story is beautiful, fun, and well-told. Yet its continued presence in my mind is due to recent events demonstrating how little the world has changed since 1946. Maybe the violence is not committed by men in white hoods who burn crosses, but violence against those who are not white still persists.