John Lewis, born February 21, 1940 and died July 17, 2020, was an American statesman and civil rights leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for 33 years from Georgia’s 5th congressional district. He was a public servant but so much more. He was a man of great grace, integrity, and honor, a man whose moral compass was his faith in God, and a man whose heart and mind sought to change systemic racism in America by believing in nonviolent protesting. He truly believed that the Christian values of forgiveness, mercy, and compassion were the only ways to foster hope rather than fear and hatred so rampant in our society. Where the framers of our Constitution wrote about our limits as a nation, Lewis drew strength from believing in our hopeful horizons, our ability to know right from wrong, and our responsibilities to bring light out of our most darkest times.
His character was built on his religious fervor, a caring concern for others, a strong quest for education, a resentment of segregation in our country, a brief but potent view of what freedom could be like in the north, and a crystal clear desire for the hope that brings change. In his righteous quest for a better America, he demanded that we love one another rather than fight one another, that we compassionately give rather than selfishly take what doesn’t belong to us, and that we take our rose-colored glasses off to see the pain of others. In the realization that there are dark forces at work in our society today, he told Congress there needs to be enough good and God-fearing people to willingly work to secure equal rights for every citizen just as those who struggled for the Civil Rights Movement fought so diligently for Black Americans. Our democracy will remain a democracy only “when people are better people and decent people. We have miles to go before our journey for social justice is completed. A journey is a march, and it means putting one foot in front of the other. It means walking in each other’s shoes.” (P. 236) Lewis believed in what Martin Luther King, Jr. stated; “Our ultimate allegiance is not to the government, not to the state, not to the nation, not to any man-made institution. The Christian owes his ultimate allegiance to God.” (PP. 33-34).
There is a long history of violence and hatred in what is now called the Civil Rights Movement. There are too many to fully list here, but all of these events and tragedies laid bare Lewis’ heart and soul so much that he was willing to be beaten, arrested and thrown into jail, and be a witness to America’s fear and hatred as those emotions scorched our southern states. With the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, schools were to become desegregated; a Negro child of five knew his color was a sign of inferiority in America as he had previously attended very poor schools in the south. In August, 1955, Emmett Till was murdered by Klansmen outside of his home in the Mississippi Delta. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man while she rode a bus in December, 1955. Arkansas governor, Orval Faubus, refused to desegregate the Central High School in Little Rock in 1957, forcing President Eisenhower to send federal troops to escort Negro teenagers into the school.
Ella Baker founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee or SNCC in April, 1960; Lewis would later become chairman of that committee. Lewis took part in a sit-in at Woolworth’s Department Store in Nashville in February, 1960 and was arrested for disorderly conduct. His parents felt disgraced, but he felt that protesting not being able to sit at a lunch counter was a badge of honor. Lewis was arrested for trying to desegregate movie theaters in Nashville in 1961. In 1960, the Supreme Court ruled that Negroes could not be forced to use segregated bus station facilities in the case Boynton v. Virginia. Two buses filled with Freedom Riders were destroyed by fire and Klansmen in Alabama. When President Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948, several Dixiecrats and Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina tried to overturn his re-election. When a white supremacist, George Wallace, became governor of Alabama in 1962, he refused to allow Negroes to enter the University of Alabama.
The March on Washington in August, 1963 brought Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis together on the same stage to speak of dreams and a brighter future for American Negroes. On September 15, 1963, four Negro girls were killed in a Klansmen bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. On November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, and Lewis remarked that “he was the first president to say that the issue of civil rights and social justice was a moral issue. He represented our hope, our idealism, and our dreams of what America could become.” (P. 153) Klansmen burned crosses in 64 of 82 counties of Mississippi in March, 1964 when the Mississippi Summer Project sought to register Negroes to vote. On June 21, 1964, three Freedom Workers were murdered by the Klan; Lewis’ reaction was “the spirit of redemptive love was being pushed aside by a spirit of rage.” (Pp. 159-160)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson as the south was becoming more dangerous and violent. Believing that people who cannot vote are hopeless, Amelia Boynton continued to register Black voters. In Selma, Alabama in March, 1965, 625 people marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were brutally attacked by state troopers and sheriffs. Lewis was severely beaten and bloodied by the onslaught of horses and club-welding, tear-gassing policemen. Malcolm X was assassinated in August, 1965, and his bitterness and frustration with white America boiled over into the Watts riots in Los Angeles. Stokely Carmichael founded the Black Panthers in 1966, and he helped forment violent, armed rebellion among militant Negroes. Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in 1968 after putting his hat in the ring for president. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis in 1968; Lewis realized for the first time what his limits were on staying nonviolent.
The people who greatly influenced John Lewis were from many different realms, educational backgrounds, races, colors, creeds, and religions. Like Reinhold Niebuhr, Lewis believed that man wants to be self-perfected but he must continue to seek perfection for all. Wanting John to save the souls of his people, John’s parents wanted him to steer away from saving the soul of the nation. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lewis believed that grace may cost a man his life and that Jesus calls us to follow Him. By integrating our schools, Lewis believed that brought America closer to what God wanted us to be as individuals and as a nation. As William Jennings Bryan said, “Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waiting for; it is a thing to be achieved.” (P. 51) From his pastor, Rev. James M. Lawson, Lewis learned that nonviolent revolution is real and serious, and it transforms all types of human life. It must be a balance between “tearing down and building up, destroying and panting.” (P. 55) Lewis believed that Christ gave us the spirit of love and Mahatma Gandhi gave the Civil Rights Movement passive resistance.
Lewis believed that nonviolence pushed society to judge itself by religious and political reasons. In agreeing with John F. Kennedy, Lewis wanted Americans to be ruled by the law, not by using force. In continuing to strive for civil rights, Lewis said, “Backing down in a situation like this means that other values matter more than the issues of the principles that are at stake, values such as personal safety.” (P. 98) Lewis believed that his primary goal as a Civil Rights activist was to make sure Negroes could vote in the south. As Martin L. King, Jr. stated, “The right to vote gives us the correct tool with which we ourselves can correct injustice.” (P. 151) Agreeing with Edmund Burke, Lewis knew that there is no more powerful weapon to the mind of a voter than fear. John Lewis was the first Black man in Alabama to receive a conscientious objector acknowledgement from the government as he was not willing to fight for a country that denied his rights while the government expected him to fight for the freedoms of other citizens around the world.
There is no greater tribute to the grace of an American statesman than John Lewis’ passionate speech at the Washington National Cathedral. As in Ephesians, John held forth the idea that we are always wrestling with those who rule us and against the darkness of the world. We all came here in different kinds of boats, but we are now in the American boat. We are varied as to our races, colors, creeds, religions, and parties, but we are one nation, one family. Learning to live together is a hard path, but we must find the right path to understanding. In the end, we must find the path that will unite us, not divide us.
In the final analysis, we must be the witness to injustice that John Lewis was; we must be willing to take our opinions and shape them into laws that change the things we cannot accept. We must be the fighters, the warriors for peace and justice. Perhaps when we give our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies for the beloved community, John’s beloved community, we can once again call ourselves true American citizens. After all is said and done and all who have morally influenced us have passed on, it is better to give than to receive. There is no greater love than to give your life for others. John Lewis was a great man, sensitive to the needs of his own race and gracefully calls all of us to action, to do the right thing, to be “Christ with flesh on.” Thank you, John. Rest in peace.
Quotations are from “His Truth Is Marching On-John Lewis and the Power of Hope” by Jon Meacham
Anna Hartt
