The Courage to Listen
October 6, 2025
In the work of human rights, it is easy to picture progress as the product of sweeping gestures – marches that fill the streets, speeches that stir nations, laws that enshrine justice. Yet history teaches us that the most powerful change often begins not with speaking, but with listening. This is why Listen Deeply stands as one of the six Wassmuth Powerful Practices. Lasting change does not only emerge from the words we proclaim but from the courage to hear and honor the truths of others.
To listen deeply is to offer your full presence to another person. Not simply to hear their words but to seek to understand their feelings, perspectives, and needs. It is listening without interrupting, judging, or rushing to fix. At its heart, it is an act of honoring the dignity of another person.
History shows us again and again that listening is transformative. During the Civil Rights Movement, long before Dr. King’s words rang out at the Lincoln Memorial, countless living rooms, church basements, and community halls were filled with stories. Black citizens who had endured exclusion, discrimination, and violence shared their lived realities. White allies who would go on to volunteer and organize were shaped by listening, truly listening, to those truths. The courage to act began in the willingness to hear.
The women’s suffrage movement offers another lesson. Before the 19th Amendment, advocates crisscrossed the country collecting testimonies from women whose voices had been shut out of public life. Their stories of working, raising families, and contributing to their communities without representation shifted hearts and minds. Lawmakers were not persuaded by arguments alone; they were moved by the lived experiences of women who shared their stories. Listening made space for a new vision of democracy.
The farmworker movement of the 1960s tells a similar story. Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta did not start with speeches or legislation. They began by sitting with farmworkers in the fields and kitchens of California’s Central Valley. They listened to stories of long hours, low pay, and unsafe conditions. From that deep listening grew a movement that redefined labor rights in the United States. Their leadership was rooted not in speaking first, but in honoring the voices of those most impacted.
These moments remind us that deep listening is revolutionary. It affirms humanity, builds trust, and uncovers truths that might otherwise remain hidden. In a world that rushes past pain, listening slows us down. It changes how we relate to others and to ourselves, opening the door to a more expansive way of being.
The practice itself is simple, though not easy. It asks us to be fully present, to set aside distractions so that the person before us knows they matter. Deep listening invites silence rather than rushing to fill it, reflection rather than assumption, curiosity rather than judgement. It asks us to listen not only for words but for the emotions beneath them and to ask questions that make space for someone else’s truth to unfold.
At the Wassmuth Center, we know that advancing human rights requires us to hold this space. Laws may establish rights, but cultures of dignity are sustained by the ways we engage with each other. Listening deeply is a radical way of insisting that every voice matters. It is how we uncover stories of exclusion, recognize harms that may never make headlines, and cultivate the empathy needed for communities where belonging is possible for all.
Think of the last time you felt truly heard. Someone gave you the gift of holding space for your truth. How did it shape your trust in them? Your own courage to speak?
Now imagine multiplying that experience across classrooms, congregations, workplaces, neighborhoods, and nations. What might shift if our starting point was not persuasion but presence? What if our first move was not to argue but to listen? Might we see each other as fellow humans rather than opponents or enemies?
Listening deeply is not simply a skill. It is a moral stance. It is how we create belonging, advance justice, and honor the dignity of every person we meet. Alongside the other five Wassmuth Powerful Practices, it reminds us that building a culture of human rights is not only about what we achieve in the Statehouse, but also about how we choose to show up for one another every day.