“As a young man marching for equality in Selma, Ala., John answered brutal violence with courageous hope,” said former President George W. Bush. “And throughout his career as a civil rights leader and public servant, he worked to make our country a more perfect union.”
Former President Barack Obama, America’s first Black president, recalled being sworn in for his first term: “I hugged him on the inauguration stand before I was sworn in and told him I was only there because of the sacrifices he made.”
Lewis died Friday, several months after the Georgia Democrat announced that he had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Lewis, 80, often recalled his upbringing in the segregated South, including how he was denied a library card because the library was for “whites only.” He was determined to destroy segregation, joining with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as founder of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to help plan the 1963 March on Washington.
Two years later, Lewis helped lead the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights march intended to go from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. White police, state troopers and thugs blocked their way on the bridge out of Selma, attacking the peaceful marchers with clubs, bullwhips and tear gas. Lewis suffered a cracked skull.
He went on to make a career in politics, representing Atlanta in Congress for more than 30 years, and all the while imploring people to press for justice — to make what he came to call “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms described that call as “a generational rallying cry for nonviolent activism in the pursuit of social justice and human rights.”
“He fought harder and longer than anyone in our nation’s continuing battle for civil rights and equal justice,” the NAACP said in a written statement.
He also scrapped with President Donald Trump, refusing to attend his inauguration and calling him a racist. Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff to honor Lewis — as required by law for sitting members of Congress. More than 14 hours after his death, following an array of unrelated retweets and a golf outing, he offered condolences.
“Saddened to hear the news of civil rights hero John Lewis passing,” Trump tweeted. “Melania and I send our prayers to he and his family.”
Those mourning included baseball legend Hank Aaron, who said he and Lewis “connected to the roots.”
“By that I mean we were born and grew up in the highly racist and segregated south, in the state of Alabama,” Aaron said. “He committed his life to the struggle for justice and equality for all people.”
Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California noted that Lewis stood not just for an end to racial discrimination, but for gay rights, such as when he opposed the federal ban on gay marriage, and for immigrant rights, such as an end to family-separation policies.
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The body of John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge one last time on Sunday in what organizers described as "The Final Crossing," part of a multiday celebration of the life of the civil rights icon.
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Perhaps the most poignant moment in this week's commemoration of Rep. John Lewis' life was seeing him cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge one last time in a horse-drawn caisson, while a line of Alabama state troopers stood at the other end of the bridge -- this time to honor him rather than beat him. It was a testament to just how far this country had come since Bloody Sunday in 1965.
Lewis was the last of the "Big Six" leaders who organized the March on Washington. So with his passing, it is a good time to ask what lessons we can draw from their example that can inform today's movement for racial justice -- especially at a moment when some have embraced an iconoclasm that seeks to cancel and discredit the founding of this country.
In his "I Have a Dream" speech, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to the ideals of the American founding. He declared, "When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir." Our founders made a "promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the 'unalienable Rights' of 'Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.' " He had come to Washington, he said, "to cash ... a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice" so that "one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.' "
Lewis, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, echoed King's sentiments in his address that day. "I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation," he said. "Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete. We must ... complete the revolution."
They saw the fight for civil rights not as a rejection of the American founding but as the necessary next step for its fulfillment and completion. They did not simply argue that racism was unfair; they argued that racism was un-American.
That is a message King kept preaching until his last moments on earth. In a speech the night before he was killed, King appealed to our founding principles and argued that it was Bull Conner who was violating them. "If I lived in China or even Russia, or any totalitarian country, maybe I could understand some of these illegal injunctions," King said. "Maybe I could understand the denial of certain basic First Amendment privileges, because they hadn't committed themselves to that over there.
But somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right."
King said the goal of the civil rights movement was to "to make America what it ought to be" by "standing up for the best in the American Dream and taking the whole nation back to those great wells of democracy, which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution." The next day, he was felled by an assassin's bullet.
King never made it to the promised land. But Lewis did. On the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, Lewis stood at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and citing President Lyndon B. Johnson, compared the March on Selma to the battles of Lexington and Concord. "In the final analysis," he said, "we are one people. ... We all live in the same House, the American House, the world House."
We can't advance racial justice by tearing that house down.
-- Marc A. Theissen, Washington Post
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ATLANTA (AP) — Hailed as a “founding father” of a fairer, better United States, John Lewis was eulogized Thursday by three former presidents and others who urged Americans to continue the work of the civil rights icon in fighting injustice during a moment of racial reckoning.
The longtime member of Congress even issued his own call to action — in an essay written in his final days that he asked be published in The New York Times on the day of his funeral. In it, he challenged the next generation to lay “down the heavy burdens of hate at last.”
After nearly a week of observances that took Lewis’ body from his birthplace in Alabama to the nation’s capital to his final resting place in Atlanta, mourners in face masks to guard against the coronavirus spread out across pews Thursday at the city’s landmark Ebenezer Baptist Church, once pastored by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Former President Barack Obama called Lewis “a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance” during a fiery eulogy that was both deeply personal and political. The nation’s first Black president used the moment to issue a stark warning that the voting rights and equal opportunity Lewis championed were threatened by those “doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting” and to call for a renewal of the Voting Rights Act.
His words came as the country has been roiled by weeks of protests demanding a reckoning with institutionalized racism — and hours after President Donald Trump suggested delaying the November election, something he doesn’t have the authority to do.
“He as much as anyone in our history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals,” Obama said of Lewis. “And some day when we do finish that long journey towards freedom, when we do form a more perfect union, whether it’s years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.”
Former President George W. Bush said Lewis, who died July 17 at the age of 80, preached the Gospel and lived its ideals, “insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope.”
Former President Jimmy Carter sent written condolences, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled how the sky was filled with ribbons of color in Washington earlier this week while Lewis’ body was lying in state at the U.S. Capitol.
“There was this double rainbow over the casket,” she said. “He was telling us, ‘I’m home in heaven, I’m home in heaven.’ We always knew he worked on the side of angels, and now he is with them.”
Lewis was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, led by King. He was best known for leading protesters in the 1965 “Bloody Sunday” march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he was beaten by Alabama state troopers.
During the service, the arc of Lewis’ activism was once again tied to King, whose sermons Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama.
King continued to inspire Lewis’ civil rights work for the next 65 years as he fought segregation during marches, “Freedom Rides” across the South, and later during his long tenure in the U.S. Congress.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said of his run-ins with the law. The phrase was repeated several times during the funeral.
“We will continue to get into good trouble as long as you grant us the breath to do so,” one of King’s daughters, the Rev. Bernice King, said as she led the congregation in prayer. She later paused and laid her hand atop Lewis’ flag-draped casket at the front of the church.
Ebenezer’s senior pastor, the Rev. Raphael Warnock, called Lewis “a true American patriot who risked his life for the hope and promise of democracy.”
Outside the church, with temperatures in the upper 80s, hundreds gathered to watch the service on a large screen; some sang the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome.” Pharrell Williams’ joyous tune “Happy” played as a closing song while a military honor guard loaded Lewis’ flag-draped coffin into a hearse; many congregation members clapped along.
The service ended days of remembrance for Lewis, who spent more than three decades in Congress representing most of his adopted home of Atlanta. In addition to the U.S. Capitol, his body lay in the Georgia and Alabama Capitol buildings, and events also were held in the Alabama cities of Troy, Lewis’ hometown, and Selma.
To the many tributes Thursday, Lewis managed to add his own words. His essay in The New York Times recalled the teachings of King:
“He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice,” Lewis wrote. “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.”
“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,” he wrote. “Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.”
Former President Bill Clinton referenced the essay during his remarks: “It is so fitting on the day of his service, he leaves us his marching orders: Keep moving.”
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Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation
Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.
By John Lewis
Mr. Lewis, the civil rights leader who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death, to be published upon the day of his funeral.
July 30, 2020
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.
