If moral courage means knowing what’s right and both doing it and defending it in spite of fear or obstructions, would you say we’ve improved over the years? My heart wants to say yes but my head tells me no. Every day seems to bring distressing news of moral courage in decline.
When we see acts of moral courage, we should recognize and applaud those who show it. We should feel emboldened to practice more of it ourselves.
Shetara had no obligation to make that donation and she surely had bills of her own to pay. It wouldn’t have been wrong in any way if she had spent the winnings on herself. She was appreciative of the way the police handled the death of her daughter back in 2012 and, in a small way, this gift enabled her to express that gratitude. The Kansas City police responded by forming a GoFundMe page with a goal to raise $10,000 for Shetara. In a few months, it generated more than $167,000.
Using the money those policemen raised for her, Shetara started a company in 2021 called Prestige Hauling & Delivery. She has since helped several dozen people earn commercial driver’s licenses and get a new start in life.
When school officials there discovered that one of their basketball players who had played 45 seconds in the first of the school’s five post-season games had actually been scholastically ineligible, they returned the state championship trophy the team had just won a few weeks before. If they had simply kept quiet, probably no one else would have ever known about it and they could have retained the trophy.
In the minds of most, it didn’t matter that the championship title was forfeited. The coach and the team were still champions—in more ways than one. I’ll bet those students learned a lesson in moral courage they’ve never since forgotten.