Rep. John Lewis - Feb. 21, 1940 - Jul. 17, 2020
Today I watched the body of Rep. John Lewis’ cast draped with a flag and drawn by two horses carried across the Edmund Petttus Bridge in Selma, AL. It was a touching tribute to a man that has dedicated practically his whole life to the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of the forefront organizers of the Selma to Montgomery March on March 7, 1965. Over 600 protestors participated in this march to bring awareness to the injustice of voting rights in Alabama. This peaceful protest would turn into what would later be called “Bloody Sunday” because of the ratical tactics of the state troopers. Mr. Lewis was one of the first protesters to be attacked in the head and carried that scar to his grave. This bridge will be renamed in his honor. Only rightly so. He gave so much of himself.
He was born of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, in Troy, AL. At a young age he was engrossed with the marches and boycotts happening around him. (One of these marches was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which I spoke about in one of my post.) He found himself drawn to the inequalities of what was happening in the U.S. He hung onto the words of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King when the Reverand spoke on the radio back in the 50′s.
“I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956, with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins - I was only 16 years old - we went down to the public library trying to check out some books, and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for colors. It was a public library.”
He attended Fisk University and was one of the individuals who organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, TN. He participated in Freedom Rides and spoke out about the iniquities of Jim Crow segregation in the South.
In August of 1963, along with Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King and others, he was one of the Keynote Speakers at the March on Washington. I was 12 years old then, but I remember my mom boarding a bus with a group of activists to participate in the march. My mom is now 88 years old and I asked her if she remembered anything about that event. She said she remembered thinking that she had never seen so many black people in one place. She also said she kept looking around thinking, there’s going to be shooting. She recalls Dr. King being surrounded by six men. Two infront of him, two in back and one on each side. I’m sure this was the “Big Six” that we hear so much about. John Lewis was one of these men.
“Before we went on any protest, whether it was sit-ins or the freedom rides or any march, we prepared ourselves, and we were disciplined. We were committed to the way of peace - the way of non-violence - the way of love - the way of life as the way of living.”
Mr. Lewis received numerous awards and medals. Among them the Presidential Medal of Freedom which was presented to him by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
This sharecropper’s son went on to become one of the most influential non-violent fighters for equality. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 to his death in 2020. Thirty-three years. And during all this time, he never stopped fighting and “getting into good trouble”. He encouraged young and old to keep up the good fight.
Rest in peace, Mr. Lewis. You earned it. And thank you.
Some information retrieved from Wikipedia.com and john.lewis.house.gov/john-lewis/biography and google.com EDUCATE YOURSELF.
