In Memoriam: Rep. John Lewis – ‘Find a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble’

Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) died on Friday, from cancer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced in a statement declaring: “America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history.”

Born the son of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, Lewis rose to become known as “the conscience of the U.S. Congress.”

Former President Barack Obama paid tribute to Rep. John Lewis in a blog posted to Medium on Saturday morning:

America is a constant work in progress. What gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further — to speak out for what’s right, to challenge an unjust status quo, and to imagine a better world.

John Lewis — one of the original Freedom Riders, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the people of Georgia for 33 years — not only assumed that responsibility, he made it his life’s work. He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.

In this March 7, 1965 file photo, state troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. At foreground right, John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely credited for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. – AP.

Considering his enormous impact on the history of this country, what always struck those who met John was his gentleness and humility. Born into modest means in the heart of the Jim Crow South, he understood that he was just one of a long line of heroes in the struggle for racial justice. Early on, he embraced the principles of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience as the means to bring about real change in this country, understanding that such tactics had the power not only to change laws, but to change hearts and minds as well.

In so many ways, John’s life was exceptional. But he never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country might do. He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, a longing to do what’s right, a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. And it’s because he saw the best in all of us that he will continue, even in his passing, to serve as a beacon in that long journey towards a more perfect union.

I first met John when I was in law school, and I told him then that he was one of my heroes. Years later, when I was elected a U.S. Senator, I told him that I stood on his shoulders. When I was elected President of the United States, 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. And through all those years, he never stopped providing wisdom and encouragement to me and Michelle and our family. We will miss him dearly.

It’s fitting that the last time John and I shared a public forum was at a virtual town hall with a gathering of young activists who were helping to lead this summer’s demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Afterwards, I spoke to him privately, and he could not have been prouder of their efforts — of a new generation standing up for freedom and equality, a new generation intent on voting and protecting the right to vote, a new generation running for political office. I told him that all those young people — of every race, from every background and gender and sexual orientation — they were his children. They had learned from his example, even if they didn’t know it. They had understood through him what American citizenship requires, even if they had heard of his courage only through history books.

Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did. And thanks to him, we now all have our marching orders — to keep believing in the possibility of remaking this country we love until it lives up to its full promise.

Farewell, sir.

You did, indeed, fight the good fight and get into a lot of good trouble.

You served God and humanity well.
Thank you.
Take your rest. #JohnLewis pic.twitter.com/U1cPEwfCGO

— Be A King (@BerniceKing) July 18, 2020

Colbert King of the Washington Post eulogizes John Lewis in a moving op-ed, John Lewis will always be with us:

John Lewis will always be with us. How on earth could we ever be separated?

John Lewis is in America’s DNA. He is a fundamental and inseparable part of the nation’s ongoing quest to heal historical racial wrongs and present-day woundings.

John Lewis’s DNA is embedded in civil and human rights groups fighting for social justice across the country. It was found present in Minneapolis, and Louisville, in Atlanta and Brunswick, Ga., where police and vigilante violence was inflicted upon unarmed black citizens.

Just as DNA contains the instructions needed for an organism to develop and survive, Lewis’s life story contains the directives to follow in the struggle to make America a better country.

John Lewis gone? Impossible. As long as the vestiges of slavery and Jim Crow linger, as long as African Americans and people of color continue to suffer from the damages and losses growing out of racism and deprivation, his living legacy is with us. Because he has given us what is lasting.

He never swerved from his credo that “people of all faiths, and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors” must band together, “to fight for equality and justice in a peace, orderly, nonviolent fashion.” It was a statement he repeated as recently as a few weeks ago following the police killings and unrest in his Atlanta hometown and across the nation.

“I see you, and I hear you. I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness.”

Like the pain he took for us on March 7, 1965, in Alabama when after leading marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, state troopers viciously attacked, fracturing his skull.

But rioting, burning and looting is not the way, he said. His instruction— good then, invaluable now — “Organize. Demonstrate. Sit-in. Stand-up. Vote. Be constructive, not destructive.”

John Lewis was always thus.

Troy, Ala., was his place of birth in 1940, and his home until 1957, when he left for the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville. That’s where the seeds of civil rights were planted. And they sprouted in lunch counter sit-ins, campus protests, Freedom Rides and arrests. Loads of arrests, more than 40, recalled Lewis.

It was also during the time when student Lewis met the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who called him, “The boy from Troy.”

The boy from Troy was a giant of a man, though, at first blush, he had the trappings of a bantam rooster. Small bird, big attitude. He was short in statue, true. But no Napoleon complex. Just a gargantuan commitment to fighting injustice and inhumanity whenever and wherever found.

His voice, redolent with the richness of the Civil Rights movement, was heard at the Lincoln Memorial in the March on Washington, and during the historic and game-changing march from Selma to Montgomery that he helped to organize. His orations for social justice shook the rafters in the halls of Congress.

Just as he stirred the crowd of journalists at the Poynter Institute’s Pulitzer Prize Centennial main event at the Palladium Theater in St. Petersburg, Fla., on March 31, 2016.

My son Rob King of ESPN and I were co-participants in “The Voices of Social Justice and Equality” program, where Lewis delivered his keynote address. Oddly enough, with all the gatherings in Washington where Lewis was present over the years, St. Petersburg was the first time I had the chance to personally interact with him.

As always with a John Lewis speech, nothing was left in the tank.

“I come here tonight to thank members of this great institution for finding a way to get in the way,” Lewis told us. “Finding a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble” is what journalists should be doing, he said.

“We need the press” he said, “to be a headlight and not a taillight.”

With great passion, Lewis left us with these words: “You must not give up. You must hold on. Tell the truth. Report the truth. Disturb the order of things. Find a way to get in the way and make a little noise with your pens, your pencils, your cameras.”

And there is John Lewis away from the camera’s eye.

Dennis Marley, who lives in Atlanta and has a place in the New Orleans’ French Quarter, wrote in an email following my July 4 column: “In July 2013, I attended the funeral of Congresswoman and Ambassador Lindy Boggs. In the Plaza in front of the Cathedral, I waited patiently for an opportunity to greet Congressman John Lewis. I waited my turn to say hello and introduce myself: ‘my name is Dennis Marley, I live in Atlanta Sir; it is my honor to meet you’. With his firm handshake he looked me in the eyes and said: ‘how can I help you Mr. Marley?’”

Separated from that paragon of public service? Never.

The New York Times chronicles the life of John Lewis in this editorial, John Lewis Risked His Life for Justice. The concluding paragraphs are relevant today:

Soon after the [Roberts] Supreme Court crippled the Voting Rights Act in 2013, states began unveiling measures limiting ballot access. At the time of the decision, Mr. Lewis wrote that the court had “stuck a dagger into the heart” of a hard-won and still necessary law. With his customary eloquence, he urged Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act, describing the right to vote as “almost sacred” and “the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

Rep. John Lewis on the right to vote in support of H.R. 12, the Voter Empowerment Act, two years ago today, July 18, 2018.

The passing of John Lewis deprives the United States of its foremost warrior in a battle for racial justice that stretches back into the 19th century and the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Americans — and particularly his colleagues in Congress — can best honor his memory by picking up where he left off…

… By restoring the Voting Rights Act gutted by Chief Justice John Roberts. Honorary the bill after John Lewis.

Rep. John Lewis should be honored by lying in state in the capitol rotunda to pay final tribute to one of this nation’s most eminent citizens.