RIP — John Lewis, 17 Term Congressman & Activist-How The Dreamer Dreamed his Dream
A true champion stood with strength with #BlackLivesMatter. When a seed is planted within, and nurtured, it blossoms into an oak tree, stood with Black Lives Matter Global Network BlackLivesMatter Plaza, Washington, DC
John Lewis, Georgia activist and congressman who was born to be an activist from an early age from preacher-hood to fighting jim crowism hood. Everywhere he travels, airports, churches, campaigns, meetings, people stop him to give thanks for all of his efforts dating back from the Civil Rights Movement and as he embraced more recently the BlackLivesMatter Movement as he stood on one of the largest street painting of BlackLivesMatter in Washington DC in front of the White House. The man yet has much fight in him and also notable during the impeachment hearing. He was and yet is a voice to be reckoned with as every word exited his lips.
He was born February 21, 1940 in Troy, Alabama, and was the third child of ten children whose parents were Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis. They were sharecroppers and most of the children worked in the fields but John Lewis knew there had to be a better life, so education became his outlet that opened the door to his great American dream.
Being raised in Troy, his childhood was void of interactions with white people but as he grew older he traveled into town with his family and that was the beginning of his introduction to racism and segregation at six years old at the public library.
His awareness to segregation was heightened after he took a trip to Buffalo, New York to visit with family members at the age of eleven. While there he learned that the north had integrated schools, buses and businesses.
When he was fifteen years old, (1955), he heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio and later that same year he became aware of the Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. King, he followed the news to learn all about the March and two years later, meet Ms. Rosa Parks and a year later met Dr. King.
Mr. Lewis in his newly release documentary, “Good Trouble” advised that he wrote Dr. King a letter about joining forces with him in Selma and with the hopes of going to school. Dr. King responded and was instrumental in his arrival that afforded him to work closely alongside Dr. King.
He is a graduate from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville and also received a bachelor’s degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University where he was dedicated to the Nashville Student Movement Civil Rights Movement and organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and took part in many other civil rights activities.
While a student, he got involved in nonviolence workshops that were held in the basement of Clark Memorial United Methodist Church conducted by Reverend James Lawson and Reverend Kelly Miller which became and yet is his philosophy, nonviolence.
The Nashville sit-in movement activities desegregated lunch counters in downtown Nashville, the first in the country. He had suffered numerous arrests during these non-violent protests. Thereafter, he was instrumental in organizing bus boycotts, and voter and racial equality protests.
1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders, seven whites and six blacks who road the bus from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in an integrated fashion, in the face of much segregation even on public transportation.
As a nonviolent proponent, these Freedom Riders were beaten, arrested and taken to jail many times in the South. He was the first to be assaulted as a Freedom Rider in Rock Hill, South Carolina as he attempted to enter a whites-only waiting room where two white men attacked, injured his face and kicked in his ribs. Two weeks later, he was onto another freedom ride bound for Jackson and was imprisoned for forty days in Mississippi due to Freedom Riders activity in that state. He suffered numerous beatings in different states at the hands of white mobs but never wavered from his mission of change.
Mr. Lewis, one of the founding members of SNCC, became the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), wrote a speech denouncing the Civil Rights Bill of 1963 not protecting African American against police brutality and the right to vote, and was quickly thereafter elected to take over. He was one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the March on Washington, 1963 as he played many key roles in the Civil Rights Movement journey to end segregation and racism that was more dominant and prevalent in the southern states.
SNCC opened Freedom Schools, launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer and organized some of the voter registration efforts during the 1965 Selma voting rights campaign, all to afford blacks the same opportunities afforded to whites.
John Lewis, the youngest speaker, spoke to the same crowd as Dr. King during his famous, I Have a Dream Speech where he presented several thought provoking questions to the masses, some questions were eliminated as not to offend the White House administration.
In 1964, along with SNCC’s efforts, he traveled all across the south mainly called the “Mississippi Freedom Summer, getting blacks to register to vote and alerted college students around the country of the atrocities that were happening to blacks in the south and for support.
Mr. Lewis gained prominence during the Selma to Montgomery marches, March 7, 1965, a day that became known as “Bloody Sunday” due to all the hatred and violence (tear gas, beatings with night sticks)spewed upon all civil rights marchers. He and fellow activist, Hoses Williams, led 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Note, the bridge is soon to be renamed and possibly after Mr. Lewis.
During this time, Mr. Lewis’ skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge to Brown Chapel, the movement’s headquarter church in Selma. Before going to the hospital, he issued a televised appeal to President Johnson to intervene in Alabama.
He has hailed various political offices and position. Namely, a member of the Democratic Party leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives, Chief Deputy Whip 1991 and Senior Chief Deputy Whip since 2003.
Had been awarded many honorary degrees and is the recipient of numerous awards from eminent national and international institutions, most notable the highest civilian honor of the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President Obama.
Mr. Lewis is a staunch fighter of equal rights and justice for all but also has a playful side with much humor as he dances to the Happy song. See below.
In February 2009, forty-eight years after he had been bloodied during at a station during a Freedom Ride, Lewis received an apology on national television from a white southerner, former Klansman Elwin Wilson.
Recently, his life was chronicled in a documentary, “Good Trouble” by filmmaker, Dawn Porter. In between much of the footage during his early days as a young boy, civil rights activists, speech during the March on Washington DC, struggles and now a life to be even more reckoned with as a congressman and yet a hero of the civil rights movement.
According to Mr. Lewis, “The fight for voting rights has marked his life, his career and his history and “A vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool in a democratic society.”
In conclusion, from a very young boy, he dreamed of bigger and better and followed his instincts and all unfolded over the years before his and our eyes. Note, there is so much more to this icon’s life but it would take eternity to share all but this will give you a glimpse of his life and times. He’s an 80 year old testament to, “If you can see it and believe it, you can achieve it.” Follow your heart to unearth your dreams.
EP McKnight a writer, teacher, stage playwright, fitness coach and constant dreamer. She is a GCU doctorate student in Performance Psychology, Graduate and Undergraduate in Educational Psychology and Communications at Fordham University New York, New York. She’s on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and you can read more of her on www.epmcknight.com
