Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Honoring Lewis
A woman lays flowers Sunday at a makeshift memorial near the home of U.S. Rep. John Lewis in Atlanta. Democratic lawmakers are calling for legislation to expand voting rights and honor the legacy of Lewis, a civil-rights activist who died Friday at age 80.
Democratic lawmakers said Sunday that they don’t want tweets or condolences to honor civil rights icon John Lewis. They want policymakers to get to work to honor the Georgia congressman’s legacy.
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the House majority whip, urged President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to pass legislation that would expand voting rights in Lewis’ name.
“It should be the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020,” Clyburn said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “That’s the way to do it. Words may be powerful, but deeds are lasting.”
Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., and Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., echoed that sentiment in interviews Sunday and called for swift passage of the legislation, called the Voting Rights Advancement Act.
The House passed the legislation in 2019. It would restore key protections of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that the Supreme Court struck down in 2013.
Lewis lost his months-long battle with pancreatic cancer Friday night, at a pivotal moment for race relations in the United States. Protesters in cities from coast to coast are demanding widespread reforms in the wake of the May killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody. Meanwhile, coronavirus cases are surging in states nationwide, shedding fresh light on the inequities that Black Americans encounter in health care.
Clyburn also called for the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., to be renamed in honor of Lewis, a lifelong friend.
The bridge, named after a former Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, became a critical site during the civil rights movement. On Bloody Sunday in 1965, Alabama state troopers beat peaceful demonstrators there — including Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull.
“Edmund Pettus was a grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan,” Clyburn said on NBC News’ “Meet the Press.” “Take his name off that bridge and replace it with a good man, John Lewis, the personification of the goodness of America, rather than to honor someone who disrespected individual freedoms.”
Today’s protests have prompted cities nationwide to reconsider monuments and other honors granted to people with ties to the Confederacy or other racist legacies. An online petition to rename the bridge in Lewis’ honor was drafted last month and has gained more than 450,000 signatures.
Lewis’ death comes amid accusations that Trump has sought to foment racial divisions in the United States as Election Day approaches rather than unite the country. Trump on Saturday tweeted a message of sympathy and prayers about the Georgia congressman, who was one of the most vocal congressional critics of the president’s policies and rhetoric.
Pressley, appearing on CNN, said she wished Trump didn’t tweet at all.
“If you really want to honor the life of John Lewis, you don’t do things like gut the fair-housing laws,” she said. “You don’t sow the seeds of division.”
Pressley said she was a beneficiary of Lewis’ activism. “There would be no Ayanna Pressley and countless others were it not for John Lewis,” she said.
Many leaders Sunday spoke of Lewis’ impact on Congress, where he was known as a moral compass for both parties in an increasingly divided political environment.
“There is a need for more John Lewises,” said Colin Powell, a former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Not just one, but many. We got a lot of work to do.”