Lewis funeral a call to action
Obama, others make impassioned pleas to keep working for a more perfect union
Thursday started miserably.
A quick check of the headlines found President Donald Trump musing over the possibility of postponing the election, news that the economy was in more dire straits than feared and word that two members of the Philadelphia Phillies had tested positive for COVID-19, canceling a weekend series of baseball games.
Then John Lewis’ funeral started.
Lewis, the U.S. representative from Georgia, died July 17. His funeral Thursday, shown on all broadcast and cable news networks in its entirety,
was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. — with whom Lewis fought and marched — was once pastor.
Instantly this became not mourning, but a welcome ray of hope in what has become a summer of stiflingly bad news.
And more than that, too.
Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush spoke; Barack Obama delivered a powerhouse eulogy. Some talked, others sang. It was a moving and fitting tribute to Lewis, a Civil Rights icon.
Lewis’ funeral was a televised call to action
But it wasn’t just a tribute. What made this an astonishing two and a half hours — and what Lewis would have liked about it, you suspect — is that it was also a full-throated call to action. And the most urgent action, repeated by many, was this:
Vote.
William Craig Campbell, the former mayor of Atlanta, ended his remarks with the last words Lewis spoke to him: “Everyone has to vote in November. It is the most important election, ever.”
“To really give meaning to the John we love, vote,” Xerona Clayton, who created the Trumpet Foundation, said at the end of her talk.
Jamila Thompson, Lewis’ deputy chief of staff, said Lewis told people in his office, “Always, always, always vote.”
Obama talked at length about voting rights being under attack.
Yes, politics played a big role in Lewis’ funeral — something that was not just unavoidable but fitting. Lewis was, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, a great politician, after all.
‘Here lies a true American patriot’
The Rev. Raphael Warnock, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist, said, “In a moment when there is so much political cynicism and narcissism that masquerades as patriotism, here lies a true American patriot who risked his life and limb for the hope and promise of democracy.”
This is not to say that the funeral was about politics and nothing else. It was about Lewis. Politics were an important part of his life, but a means to an end: equality.
In an emotional moment, 12-year-old Tybre Faw, who had traveled hours to meet Lewis in Selma, Ala., in 2018, read “Invictus,” Lewis’ favorite poem (“I am the master of my fate/I am the captain of my soul”). When he was done, Faw said, “John Lewis was my hero and my friend. Let’s honor him by getting in good trouble.” Faw then broke down in tears.
“Good trouble,” Lewis’ famous words telling us what we should get into to elicit change, echoed through nearly every speech. Lewis even used them himself, in an essay he wrote for the New York Times, with instructions to publish on the day of his funeral.
“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble,” Lewis wrote. “Voting and participating in the democratic process are key.”
At the funeral, Obama’s eulogy was the dramatic centerpiece of the services — there was considerable anticipation.
He did not disappoint.
Obama spoke with righteous anger, and hope
While he spoke with admiration and thanks for the path Lewis paved for equality, Obama also expressed barely concealed, righteous anger when he talked about attacks on voting. He never mentioned Trump by name, but it was clear whom he was talking about. He tied the past with the present.
“Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes, police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans,” he said. “George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”
Social media immediately filled with posts and tweets about Obama’s remarks, his powerful manner of speaking, the contrast with Trump’s halting delivery and confrontational style.
Make no mistake, Obama was also confrontational. But he spoke of a different kind of fight.
“If we want our children to grow up in a democracy … then we’re going to have to be more like John,” Obama said. “We don’t have to do all the things he did, because he did them for us. But we’ve got to do something.”
Remarkable television. For once, you could turn to a news channel and feel hope, not despair. And it was, above all, a powerful tribute to Lewis. As Warnock said, “He loved America until America learned to love him back.”
“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key.”
John Lewis
In a farewell essay published Thursday in the New York Times