Lewis is gone, but not the fight
I’m late writing about civil rights giant John Lewis whose death to cancer captured America’s attention – fleetingly so.
Four days after his death at age 80, America seemed to have moved on, except for the race to fill his Georgia seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and talk about the two fools who mistakenly posted photos on social media of another Black leader when paying tribute to Lewis.
The two fools, Republican Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Dan Sullivan of Alaska, posted a photo of the late Rep. Elijah Cummings instead of Lewis, drawing ire and ridicule – deservedly so.
That snafu and America’s collective short attention span is pushing the work and memory of Lewis to the back of our minds where it can stay hidden -to the delight of those who’d rather not tackle the social injustice that he fought for all his life.
We must not let that happen. I could have moved on, too, since I missed the “wave,” a term journalists use to describe the peak moment of readers’ attention.
But talking and writing about Lewis, his work, his legacy and what that means to the current social justice unrest mustn’t be a one-off story or column. For newsrooms, it must be a commitment to fair and accurate coverage of the movement, to hire and promote minorities to positions of power and to welcome rigorous debate of different points of view.
The rest of America, from corporations to small businesses to local and national politicians of all ideologies, must commit to take up where Lewis left off.
Yes. It’s easy to say but incredibly difficult to do and Lewis had the scars to prove it.
Had America truly accepted the end of slavery and all the oppression it represented when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed it so in 1863, then Lewis and the other Freedom Riders needn’t have suffered beatings and clubbings a century later by white mobs defending segregated restrooms, hotels, restaurants, swimming pools and parks.
Lewis endured the beatings valiantly alongside the Rev. Martin King Jr. and many others who were fed up. Their civil rights movement led to many improvements including passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In today’s America, there are no segregated restrooms or restaurants, for instance. A lot has changed for Black Americans and other people of color. On this too, Lewis was proof of it. He represented a Georgia congressional district for more than three decades until his death on July 17.
Black Americans,
Latinos,
Asians,
Muslims, etc., are now elected to Congress and hold positions of power in many industries. But those accomplishments are still hailed as rarities instead of the norm.
Too many Black Americans are still more likely to be killed by police than whites. Too many Black Americans and other people of color are left behind in poor and crime-ridden neighborhoods without the resources to get out.
Lewis knew the root of the problems that led him and so many others to risk their lives in the 1960s remain alive in modern America and thus his support for the massive protests in the wake of George Floyd killing in police custody.
Lewis told CBS This Morning in June that it was moving to see so many people take to the streets “to speak up, to speak up, to get into what I call ‘good trouble.’”
Lewis wasn’t afraid to fight back. He chose nonviolence to do it, though that didn’t stop others from violently beating him.
It’s so ironic that Lewis died at a moment when America is facing a reckoning over race – different than the 1960s of course but over race and inequality, nonetheless.
He knew that the struggle is far from over.
“Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime,” Lewis said in a Tweet in 2018. “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. #goodtrouble.”
Now it is up to us to make noise and get “in good trouble.” What is that exactly? Each of us have a role to play. For me it’s to write – even unpopular views. For others is taking to the streets to protest or to register people to vote or fight inequality in court or to run for office.
The challenge to honor Lewis is to speak up and do something to end inequality in America.