A Tribute to the Great John Lewis

A Tribute to the GreatJohn Lewis

President Barack Obama presents a 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Lewis announced Sunday, Dec. 29, 2019, that he has stage IV pancreatic cancer, vowing he will stay in office and fight the disease with the tenacity which he fought racial discrimination and other inequalities since the civil rights era. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

Published in the NY Times 7/30/2020 written by John Lewis, published at his request, on the day of his funeral:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html

Together, You

Can Redeem the Soul

of Our Nation

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. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.

Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.

You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, through decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.

On July 17th our nation lost a great civil rights leader. Congressman John Robert Lewis, orignally from Troy Alabama. Congressman Lewis was a great American civil rights leader and politician who chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and participated in the march that was halted by police violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, a landmark event in the history of the civil rights movement that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

John Lewis worked tirelessly and selflessly all of his life to improve the lives of his constituents in Georgia as congressman, and to improve the lives of African Americans and in deed all Americans. He was known for his kindness, sincerity and grace. All valuable qualities that are sorely lacking in many of today's political leaders.

A Short Biography -

John Robert Lewis was born February 21, 1940, the son of Alabama sharecroppers. He attended segregated schools and was encouraged by his parents not to challenge the inequities of the Jim Crow South. As a teenager, however, he was inspired by the courageous defiance of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to whose attention Lewis came when he indicated his desire to desegregate Troy State College (now Troy University). Dissuaded from doing so by his parents, Mr. Lewis instead was educated in Nashville at the American Baptist Theological Institute and Fisk University (B.A. in religion and philosophy, 1967).

There Mr. Lewis undertook the study of nonviolent protest and became involved in sit-ins at lunch counters and other segregated public places. In 1961, while participating in the Freedom Rides that challenged the segregation of Southern interstate bus terminals, Mr. Lewis was beaten and arrested by police—experiences he would repeat often. In 1963, John Lewis played a key role in the historic March on Washington. Although Mr. Lewis was still only 25, he had already become such a prominent figure that he was considered one of the civil rights movement’s “Big Six” leaders, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young. In 1964 Mr. Lewis headed the SNCC’s efforts to register African American voters and organize communities in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer project.

Mr. John Robert Lewis became Congressman John Robert Lewis in 1986. A member of the Democratic Party, Congressman Lewis served for 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district Due to his length of service, he became the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. The district he represented includes the northern three-quarters of Atlanta.

John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the first time on Sunday, March 7th 1965. He marched with many other prominent civil rights leaders in Selma Alabama. They intended to march to Montgomery, to the capital building to protest voter discrimination against African Americans. Along with hundreds of civil rights advocates, he planned to march from Selma to Montgomery to draw attention to the need for voting rights in the state, which was infamous for denying African Americans the right to vote.

"We're marching today to dramatize to the nation, dramatize to the world, the hundreds and thousands of Negro citizens of Alabama that are denied the right to vote," Lewis said. "We intend to march to Montgomery to present said grievance to Governor George C. Wallace."

The bridge itself crosses the Alabama River in Selma, Alabama. Built in 1940, it is named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate brigadier general, U.S. senator, and leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan.

Congressman John Lewis last stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Selma, Ala., during the annual commemoration of "Bloody Sunday," Congressman John Robert Lewis was carried across that bridge for the last time, today, Sunday, July 26th 2020. A great statesman, civil rights leader, and congressman.

There are now efforts to rename the Edmund Pettus bridge in the Congressman's honor: https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/07/26/john-lewis-bloody-sunday-edmund-pettus-bridge/

See the congressman's opinion about renaming the bridge in 2015: https://sewell.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/alcom-john-lewis-terri-sewell-defend-keeping-selma-bridge-named-after

His life was a testament to civil rights, civil equity and civic duty. We need more people like him and we need to remember his courage and his defiance of in justice.

Learn more about Congressman John Lewis, visit the following sites:

https://johnlewis.house.gov/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/25/politics/john-lewis-memorial-weekend-details/index.html

Information on the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Student-Nonviolent-Coordinating-Committee

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/student-nonviolent-coordinating-committee-sncc

https://snccdigital.org/ - "SNCC focused on voter registration and on mounting a systemic challenge to the white supremacy that governed the country’s entrenched political, economic and social structures.

Young activists and organizers with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC (pronounced “SNICK”), represented a radical, new unanticipated force whose work continues to have great relevance today. For the first time, young people decisively entered the ranks of civil rights movement leadership. They committed themselves to full-time organizing from the bottom-up, and with this approach empowered older efforts at change and facilitated the emergence of powerful new grassroots voices… "

What can you do to honor the memory of Congressman John Robert Lewis? One thing you can do, if you are of voting age, is exercise your right to vote. If you are too young to vote, remind your parents and older siblings to do so.

John Robert Lewis, a great American and a true hero

Books by John Lewis include:

March One - Three 2015-2018

Across That Bridge 2012

Walking With the Wind 1998

Information for this tribute was taken from the following websites:

http://www.amazon.com

http://www.britannica.com

http://www.cnn.com

http:/www.snccdigital.org

http://www.nytimes.com

http://www.washingtonpost.com

and from his memoir Walking With The Wind: A Memoir of the Movement Hardcover – June 1, 1998

Page updated

Report abuse