Congressman John Lewis believed in hope and the promise of America, despite its history. Beaten, bloodied and repeatedly arrested, Lewis, who would have been 83 this February, never embraced violence. He instead envisioned the “Beloved Community” and embraced “good trouble.”
As a young man inspired by the nonviolent resistance of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, John participated in sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville. The sit-ins spread across the South and led to the Freedom Rides, where Lewis and his fellow activists braved baseball bats and iron pipes to integrate interstate bus and travel facilities.
Credit: contributed
Credit: contributed
Lewis was 23 when, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the dais with Martin Luther King Jr. at the March on Washington, he called for passage of the Civil Rights Act and courageously proclaimed, “‘One man, one vote’ is the African cry. It is ours too. It must be ours!”
The following year, he and his fellow activists launched Freedom Summer in Mississippi. They would register nearly half a million people to vote.
Lewis was 25 years old when his skull was fractured in a beating on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for leading a march to help register Black voters in Alabama. He crossed that bridge with 25,000 people in tow two weeks later on the heels of President Lyndon Johnson saying, “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice … . And we shall overcome.” What became known as Bloody Sunday led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
In 1970, Lewis became head of the Voter Education Project, which in the decade following the passage of the Voting Rights Act moved the number of Black people registered to vote in the South from 2 percent to 60 percent and forever changed the political landscape of the South.
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis to head VISTA. In 1981, Lewis began a five-year stint on the Atlanta City Council, where he always stood for ethics in government. In 1985, he made a successful run for Congress and went on to represent Georgia’s 5th district and be reelected 18 times.
He never stopped; he never slowed down.
Sixty years after Lewis and others risked their young lives to desegregate daily life and voting rights, the urgency of the effort persists. Innocent Black people are still beaten, arrested and killed for living their lives. Tyre Nichols is the latest casualty that we know about. Voting rights are being assaulted and manipulated.
Books about the history of Blacks in America are being banned. AP classes about Black history and African American Studies classes are being prohibited. And there is even an effort to rename part of Rep. John Lewis Way in Nashville to Donald Trump Boulevard.
Congressman Lewis reminded us in a letter he wrote just a couple of days before he left us that “Democracy is not a state. It is an act and each generation must do its part to help build what we call the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.” He went on to say “While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society … . That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington.”
Lewis did not want us to ever forget that it is the courage and vision of young people that changes the course of history.
Before he passed, Lewis created the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation to carry on the work that defined his and his wife’s lives. As we end Black History Month, we must embrace “good trouble” and do all that we can to prevent history repeating itself. We can and must build the Beloved Community to which John Robert Lewis dedicated his life and for which he risked his life.
Linda Earley Chastang is president and CEO of the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation Inc.
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