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“How long can we be patient,” John Lewis queried in a
forceful challenge on August 28, 1963. The youngest and
perhaps most revolutionist of the array of distinguished
speakers at the historic March on Washington, Lewis, then
threw down the gauntlet. “We want our freedom, and we want
it now.”
For more than 60 years, the gentle but resolute Lewis fought
for voting rights, gun control, healthcare reform,
immigration, fair housing, and equal rights under the law
for all citizens. Last week, having fought the good fight
of faith, the gentle moral but mortal giant “stuck his sword
in the sands of time” and went on to be with the ancestors.
What made John Lewis a giant?
Lewis mastered the “art of pestering” at a young age after
concluding that injustice is more effectively remedied by
troubling “ease” than troubling conscience.
“I met Rosa Parks in 1957, when I was 17. In 1958, I met Dr.
King,” he explained to The Late Show host Stephen Colbert in
2016. “And these two individuals inspired me to get in
trouble. And I’ve been getting in ‘good trouble,’ necessary
trouble ever since,” he added.
Having become an expert irritator, disturber, and tormentor
under King, Lewis was first arrested and jailed on February
27, 1960, along with nearly 100 young black HBCU students.
They attempted a sit-in at Woolworth’s, Walgreens and
McLellan’s in Nashville, Tennessee.
Despite being beaten bloody, kicked, spat on, and burned
during over 60 years of social activism and legislative
advocacy, Lewis, the professional “good trouble-maker,”
always kept coming back. He was arrested 45 times, McClatchy
News reports, including five times as a member of Congress.
The last arrest was in 2013.
Yet old and new battles are still before us.
The SCOTUS’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 has
allowed discriminatory voter suppression tactics targeting
African-American communities to potentially neutralize the
increased voting power of blacks won during the Civil Rights
Movement. Thousands of voter locations have been closed,
mostly in black and brown communities, limiting voting
opportunities. Millions of minorities have also been purged
from voter rolls.
Additionally, police officer-involved killings of George
Floyd in Minneapolis, “Sean” Reed in Indianapolis, Breonna
Taylor in Louisville, and Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta
represent a horrifying series of sequels. Tragically,
police misconduct demonstrates “a critical need for police
reform that will halt the seemingly unchecked power of
officers to shoot and kill blacks out of their fear and
bias,” says attorney Ben Crump.
Other newer issues, such as trans rights, access to
technology, and a pandemic, which has brought unprecedented
sickness, death, hatred, and political discord, also demand
attention.
What can we learn from Lewis?
John Lewis’ legacy provides us with many lessons.
1.
The Fight for Justice is a War
A war is made up of many battles, and the fight will ebb and
flow. There will be both advances and retreats; progress and
setbacks. There will be breakthroughs like the election and
inauguration of President Barack Obama. However, delays,
retreats, and reversals will also occur. The control of an
incalcitrant U.S. Senate, unwilling to provide a hearing for
the Voting Rights Advancement Act and for other relevant
fairness legislation, is an unfortunate hindrance.
2.
When Making Trouble is Good
Following the conservative norms of appearance and behavior
as a counter to negative stereotypes about black people
a/k/a Respectability Politics is a myth and has never worked
to bring about change. Melissa Harris-Perry warns about the
increasing lack of relevance of many of our black
middle-class, Baby Boomer-led organizations. “If they are
unprepared for emeritus status, they must be ready for a
return to the bloody years. [They] must become radical and
expect a time when people will be mocked and potentially
harmed simply for being aligned with it.”
However, thankfully, the current movement is younger,
multiracial, and more radical, open, populist, militant.
Like Lewis, the younger generation does not mind causing
“good trouble” or making privileged groups uncomfortable.
Besides, groups like BLM and others are “more plural – in
terms of class, sexuality, and even concern about various
racial groups. Hence, they are OUR future,” says Duke
University professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.
As Lewis passes the baton to these more agitative groups,
older black organizations continue their “slow march of
extinction, as they transition to relic status.”
3.
Hold Them Accountable
Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner, said it best. Speaking
exactly six years after the death by police chokehold of her
son, “Don’t let the fire burn out,” she admonished. “Because
what happens is when we’ve settled down, they settle down
and they sweep all of this up under the rug. We have to keep
the fire to the feet of the legislators.”
John Lewis’ long, tenacious career of activism dramatically
accentuates Carr’s statement. In other words, “don’t let
fatigue defeat us,” Lewis’ life seems to preach to us.
That’s the danger that undermines the entire struggle.
Yes. “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends
towards justice. So, be not weary in well-doing, for we
shall reap if we faint not.”
Contact Rev. Donald Perryman, D.Min, at
drdlperryman@centerofhopebaptist.org |
