July 27th, 2020
My Dear America:
John Lewis is no longer alive to travel to the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. where he spent much of his life. He did, however, travel there today and is resting there for a short period of time in which many Americans who loved him and respected him can visit him before his long Dedicated American Journey comes to an end in Alabama, where he began his Journey through History so many decades ago.
I have learned many interesting things about John Lewis in the past couple of weeks. I have learned mainly that John Lewis was not only a student of History but he was a truly Historical figure himself. He readily told people about his Civil Rights struggles not because he was bragging but because he wanted people to know how far we had come in America and also how far he had come on his Civil Rights Historical Journey. He knew, however, that we still had a long way to go to get to the Promised Land.
John Lewis was born into a large but loving family in Troy, Georgia. Many of his siblings have been helping to see him off on his Journey during the past few days.
John's parents were not Civil Rights leaders and they found it difficult to accept the dangerous path that John set out on once he connected with a voice on the radio that deeply moved him. That voice belonged to Martin Luther King Jr. who was so impressed with a letter sent to King from John Lewis that King sent John a bus ticket and encouraged John to come and Visit Martin, which the "Boy From Troy." did.
John Lewis impressed Martin Luther King with his sincere dedication to Civil Rights. John was still a very young man when he joined Martin Luther King on his Nonviolent Road To Revolution. Some of Martin's partners in Civil Rights who were Leaders in their own right recognized that Martin Luther King saw something special in John Lewis and felt that Martin saw John almost as a son.
What everyone in the Civil Rights Movement saw with John Lewis was an incredible bravery in the face of Honest To God Terror. By now nearly everyone has seen the disturbing news footage from the Selma Alabama State Police Assault on peaceful marchers at the Edmond Pettis Bridge in Selma in which John Lewis was leading the march when he and the other marchers were savagely attacked. What today's young people may not realize is that this brutal news footage showed the rest of America just what black citizens were dealing with in the south in the 1950s and 1960's and it turned many Americans into Civil Rights supporters. It was one of those seminal moments that shook America to its core.
John Lewis returned to the Edmond Pettis Bridge year after year when he became a Member of Congress and he took other Congress people with him, both Democrats and Republicans and showed them proudly where he got his head bashed in and was almost killed. The Edmond Pettis Bridge was not the only danger zone for John Lewis. He was beaten and arrested over and over in many different places in the south. Many of his contemporaries in the Civil Rights movement did not expect John Lewis to live until he was 30, never mind make it until 80. But he did make it to 80 and he made his life a monument to History.
Outside of members of his family Two people who he really admired were Martin Luther King J. and Robert Kennedy, both of whom were killed by assassins. When Robert Kennedy was killed in Los Angeles John Lewis, who was at the time a trusted member of the Kennedy Campaign Team was waiting in Robert Kennedy's hotel suite for Kennedy along with many other members of the devastated Campaign team. Months before Kennedy's murder Lewis had to suffer through King's assassination. The loss of these two Mentors was crushing but not enough to turn back John Lewis. He had seen in his observation of Kennedy on the road just what politics could do and he began and continued his political Journey winding up in Congress.
John Lewis was one of the "Big Six" leaders of the 1963 March on Washington and was one of the speakers who President John F. Kennedy worried most about. Other leaders including Dr. King and A. Philip Randolph asked John to tone down his proposed speech and he did but his speech was still fiery. SNCC, The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee the group that John Lewis helped to start and was a leader for became more militant as time went on and John had to leave the group because he still believed in Nonviolence, and did throughout his life.
Nonviolence almost killed him many times over the years of the Civil Rights Struggle. He was a Freedom Rider and worked in Mississippi during "Freedom Summer," the summer that three of his friends were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and their bodies buried in a dam.
Certainly if there was someone who deserved to be angry, hateful and resentful about the many tragedies he had seen and endured over his lifetime it was John Lewis. But as he did his job in the halls of United States Congress he did not brag about himself. He did not hate anyone. He even forgave the self confessed Ku Klux Klansman who visited him in Congress confessing to have beaten John bloody back in the day when John was a Freedom Rider and involved in a Sit In at a Lunch Counter in Nashville, Tennessee. When these two old men met they cried together and John forgave the Klansman for beating the the Civil Rights Icon.
One of the highlights of John Lewis's life was the Election of Barack Obama to be the President Of The United States. Obama loved John Lewis and treasured his friendship with The Civil Rights leader. So did Bill Clinton. John was looking forward to this year's election when he could vote for his long time Congressional compatriot, Joe Biden.
"They don't make Em Like That Anymore" was an expression my mother used to use. I think that expression is more than appropriate to apply to John Lewis.
God Bless you, Brother. You were one of a kind. That's for sure and you will be sorely missed by everyone who knew you.
Sincerely Yours
Jerry Gallagher
No comments:
Post a Comment