J-Speaks: The Sudden Passing A Civil Rights Icon and Longtime Congressman From Georgia

He was the son of sharecroppers in rural Pike County, AL. He was the protégé of Dr. Martin Luther Kings, Jr. who challenged the segregated Jim Crow South through nonviolence in the historic struggle for equal rights for all Americans, which continues today. This lion of the Civil Rights movement would carry that mantle of moral authority into Congress Representing the state of Georgia from the middle of the 1980s until his sudden passing at the start of this weekend.

Congressman John Robert Lewis, who served Georgia’s 5^th congressional district in the United States House of Representatives beginning in 1987 died late Friday night. He was 80 years old. Mr. Lewis is survived by his son John-Miles, who he brought into this world with his wife of a little over four decades Lillian Miles, who Mr. Lewis met at a New Year’s Eve party hosted by fellow civil rights leader Xernona Clayton and broadcast executive. Mrs. Lewis passed-away on ironically enough New Year’s Eve 2012.

His passing was confirmed in a statement by House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a statement which read in part, “Today, America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history: Congressman John Lewis, the Conscience of the Congress.”

“John Lewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation-from the determination with which he met discrimination at lunch counters and on Freedom Rides, to the courage he showed as a young man facing down violence and death on Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the moral leadership he brought to the Congress for more than 30 years.”

“In the halls of the Capitol, he was fearless in his pursuit of a more perfect union, whether through his Voter Empowerment Act to defend the ballot, his leadership on the Equality Act to end discrimination against the LGBTQ Americans or his work as a Senior Member of the Ways and Means Committee to ensure that we invest in what we value as a nation.”

Back on Dec. 29, 2019, Mr. Lewis announced he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer but vowed to fight it with the same fire for which he had against social and racial injustice. He told “CBS This Morning” in June that he believed that his health was improving.

“I have been in some kind of fight --- for freedom, equality, basic human rights --- for nearly my entire life,” he said. “I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.”

Born on Feb. 21, 1940 outside of Troy, AL, Mr. Lewis was drawn to activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which were led by the late great Dr. Martin Luther King. At 17, Mr. Lewis would meet Rosa Parks, who on Dec. 1, 1955 refused the order of bus driver James F. Blake to give up her seat in what was called the “colored section” of the bus she was on to a Caucasian passenger after all the seats in the white-only section was filled.

  

He told the story of meeting Rosa Parks and Dr. King on CBS’ “The Late Show with Steven Colbert” in 1957 and 1958 respectably at the ages of 17 and 18, and it was these two icons who inspired Mr. Lewis to get into what he referred to many times in his over three decades in Congress, “good trouble.”

“These two individuals inspired me to get in trouble. And I’ve been getting into ‘good trouble,’ necessary trouble ever since,” he said to Colbert.

That led Mr. Lewis to become one of the thirteen original “Freedom Riders,” who protested segregated bus terminals across the South.  

In the 1960s, Congressman Lewis was right at the front of battle to halt the Jim Crow laws that led him to suffer many wounds, some visible from those tilts from blows to his body and a fractured skull. In fact, there was a photo of Mr. Lewis with a bandage on his head from the beating he and other Riders took in one of many arrests in the fight for social change.

“We must cry. We all must cry together. And we want our freedom and we want it now,” he once said.

But that only made him more determined to win the battle of the civil rights movement, being there, front and center for every moment civil rights movement.

He would March shoulder-to-shoulder with the late great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Organize sit in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in downtown Nashville, TN, which was called the Nashville Sit-In Movement when he was a student at Fisk University, where he received his B.A. in religion and philosophy. Before that, Congressman Lewis graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville.

While the battle has continued to the present day, Mr. Lewis would be right there as the lone surviving speaker and chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from the original March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963, joining the late James Farmer, founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942; the late A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925; the late Roy Wilkins, who was named Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1955; the late Whitney Young, who spent much of his career working to abolish employment discrimination in the South and was the Executive Director of the National Urban League, which he held until his passing in 1971; and Dr. King as the “Big Six,” who help planned this historic event. Where Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. A similar event will take place on Aug. 28 in the same area of the National Mall in the District of Columbia.

“Let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution,” the longtime Congressman from Georgia said on that historic day, adding “We don’t want our freedom gradually but we want to be free now.”

“I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete.”

On the same day of Mr. Lewis’ passing, a close associate of Dr. King in Baptist minister Reverend C.T. Vivian passed-away at the age of 95.

It is because of that speech and the work that has taken place since then a person in D.C., who has worked as a poll worker said, “Without John Lewis and the Civil Rights movement, I would not be a poll worker. We would not have the freedom to vote.”

Another D.C. resident said John Lewis “changed the face of America,” adding, “such a great man, such a great loss.”

Two years later, Mr. Lewis’ named rose to national prominence as the spearhead of the defining moment of the civil rights era when he and fellow activist Hosea Williams lead over 600 peaceful protestors from Selma to Montgomery, AL across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL on Mar. 7, 1965.

“We’re marching today from Selma to Montgomery. We’re marching to our state capitol to dramatize to our nation and to world our determination to win first class citizenship,” a 25-year-old Lewis said in a speech prior to the march that day.

Lewis was in front of the pack where he and those that marched were met by Alabama State Troopers and the bottom of the bridge and who ordered them to disperse. They did not and they stop to pray, which then led the state troopers to disperse tear gas on the marchers and was followed by serious confrontation between the troopers and protestors, with the troopers beating them with night sticks, in what is now known as “Bloody Sunday.” Mr. Lewis’ skull was fracture from that confrontation and he suffered scars on his head that he would bare for the remainder of his life.

“I was the first person to be hit, and I still have the scar on my forehead,” Mr. Lewis said to CBS News’ Bob Schieffer, former anchor of CBS’s “Face the Nation” at the same site of the march a few years back. “And I was knocked down. My legs just went out from under me. I thought I was going to die on this bridge.”

Mr. Lewis survived “Bloody Sunday” and was there by the side the 36^th President of the U.S. President Lyndon Johnson when the Stonewall, TX native signed the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination against voting, which allowed millions of African Americans in the South the right to vote for the first time. 

 

After an unsuccessful bid for Congress in 1977, Lewis accepted the position of Associate Director of ACTION in the administration of President Jimmy Carter, where he was responsible for running VISTA, the AmeriCorps national service program designed to alleviate poverty. The Retired Senior Volunteer Program and the Foster Grandparent Program, now known as Senior Corps under the authority of the Corporation for National and Community Service, whose stated mission is to provide aid to senior citizens in communities in the U.S., while promoting a sense of community.

After holding that position for two and a half years, Mr. Lewis resigned as the 1980 presidential election was on the horizon.

One year later, Mr. Lewis ran for an at-larger seat on the Atlanta City Council, which he won by earning 69 percent of the vote.

In 1986, he would run for the 5^th District seat in the House of Representatives again after former Atlanta City Councilman Wyche Fowler gave up his seat to make a run for the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Lewis in the August Democratic Primary ran against State Representative Julian Bond, who he defeated in a run-off of 52 percent to 48 percent.

The race though put a severe strain in the African American community of Atlanta, GA because many black leaders supported Bond over Lewis.

They were especially unhappy when Lewis ran campaign ads accusing Bond of being corrupt, implying he taken cocaine and suggested he fabricated about his role as a civil activist during the civil rights movement.

Mr. Lewis during the campaign was endorsed by the city of Atlanta’s newspapers and became a favorite of the Caucasian liberal establishment. His win came from how well he polled amongst Caucasian voters, who were a minority in his district. That is how he defeated the Republican candidate Portia Scott 75 percent to 25 percent.

Congressman Lewis would be reelected 16 times to Georgia’s 5^th Congressional District, falling below 70 percent of the vote only once during the general election in 1994, when he barely defeated Republican candidate Dale Dixon by a margin of 69 percent to 31 percent. He ran opposed six times (1996, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2014 and 2018).

In his 33 years of services to the 5^th district of Georgia, Congressman Lewis would get into “good trouble,” pushing as a liberal democrat who pushed for civil rights, gay rights, and freedom for all Americans, especially minorities in our nation.

“I got arrested 40 times during the 60s. And since I’ve been in Congress another five times,” he said.

  

Getting into “good trouble” earned Congressman Lewis was awarded the highest civilian honor in our country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February of 2011 and that medal was placed around his neck by the first African American President as well as the 44^th to lead our nation Barack Obama.

In a statement posted on the website “Medium,” Mr. Obama wrote about Mr. Lewis, “He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”

Mr. Obama added about the moments before taking his oath in 2009, he wrote, “When I was elected President of the United States, I hugged him on the inauguration stand before I was sworn in and told him I was only there because of the sacrifices he made. Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did.”

In recent years, Mr. Lewis has been an outspoken critic of our current leader of our nation Donald Trump, skipping his inauguration, the second inauguration of a Republican president he skipped and his first State of the Union address.

Congressman Lewis has been involved in several protest against President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.

“We are getting in ‘good trouble’ to set people free,” Mr. Lewis said at one of those rallies against the current president’s immigration policy. “I will go to the borders. I’ll get arrested again.”

Nearly 60 years later after the murder of George Floyd in the custody of three Minneapolis, MN Police officers in late May, Mr. Lewis said he welcomed the plethora of protest that occurred not just in this country but globally against African Americans and all minorities having their lives taken at the hands of those who are supposed to serve and protect them.

Along with that, Mr. Lewis welcomed those demonstrations that took a stand against systemic racism in many corners of our society.

These peaceful protest Congressman Lewis saw these protests as this generation taking the baton and continuing the battle that he and the “Big Six” began in the 1960s deciding to chose love over hate to create a better and greater nation and world.

“It doesn’t matter whether we’re black or white, Latino, Asian American or Native American. It doesn’t matter whether we’re straight or gay. We are one people. We are one family. We all live in the same house,” Mr. Lewis said.

He also said of the movement to co-host Gayle King “CBS This Morning” in June, 10 days after the murder of Mr. Floyd, “This feels and looks so different. It is so much more massive and all inclusive. To see people from all over the world taking to the streets, the roadways to stand up, to speak up, to speak out, to do what I call getting in ‘good trouble.”

“And with the sense of determination and commitment, dedication, there will be no turning back. People now understand what the struggle was all about. It’s another step down a very long road toward freedom, justice for all humankind.”

In how the “Black Lives Matter Movement” has been the engine driving these demonstrations against the dark cloud of racism that has existed in our nation for four centuries, Congressman Lewis said, “

As important as is it and will continue to be for us as Americans, not just minorities to strategize and mobilize to express our frustrations and disappointments about how our nations sees a certain number of us through peaceful protests, it will up to our leaders at the local, state and federal level to come together to strategize, mobilize, vote and approve laws that will make our nation more equal.

It is why back in 2016, days after another mass shooting, Congressman Lewis asked all of his colleagues of the House to join him on the floor as he led an unprecedented sit-in trying but failing to secure votes for gun control legislation.

In June, Mr. Lewis visited “Black Lives Matter” Plaza in Washington where he stood on spot of the new mural with a mask on and using a cane and said that it sends a mighty powerful and strong message to the rest of the world. In what was his last public appearance.

Congressman Lewis was joined at the newly formed plaza by Mayor of the District of Columbia Muriel Bowser (D) as many people stopped to take photos of the civil rights icon. In a photo that Mayor Bowser posted on her Twitter page @MayorBowser, it was of Mr. Lewis standing on the “Black Lives Matter” mural with his arms crossed across his body facing the White House.

If supporters of Congressman Lewis have their way in Alabama, the aforementioned Edmund Pettus Bridge will be renamed in honor of the Civil Rights Icon. A petition to rename the bridge has already according to a report from the Sunday morning edition of WABC 7 “Eyewitness News” has over 400,000 signatures. Edmund Pettus was a confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader, and from how many statues and symbols of those that represent the worst of our country have been taken down or renamed, this might be the next one.  

On Friday, the United States did not just say goodbye to a legend that represented the Fifth Congressional District of Georgia for 33 years in the United States House of Representatives in John Robert Lewis but it lost one of the great storytellers at the heart of the struggle for equality for African Americans for six decades and was the last remaining person that was alive who spoke at March on Washington 57 years ago.

A storyteller who national correspondent and co-host of “CBS This Morning Saturday” Michelle Miller, who graduated from Howard University in Washington, D.C. said of being in the presence of Mr. Lewis on the many occasions she did being in the “presence of greatness,” who was kind, had strength with a mix that “air of humility all his own.”

Former Atlanta Mayor, the 14^th United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and former Congressman of Georgia’s Fifth District Andrew Young (D), who also graduated from Howard University said in an interview on Saturday virtually with Miller of the fellow Civil Rights leader one of his “heroes.”

“John Lewis was maybe the quietest member of the Civil Rights Movement,” Mr. Young added. “He could laugh and he could joke. But he was very seldom rowdy, loud or—he had no ego at all. He had the power of humility that just won people over to him. He didn’t push. He wasn’t angry and he had many reasons to be angry. But he always dominated by that loving spirit in life. There was a power in his humility that just made people want to follow him.”

That humility and kindness is how Congressman Lewis was one of the few lawmakers left on Capitol Hill who is universally admired by both his Democratic colleagues and Republicans in part because at the height of the impeachment of President Trump last year he participated in a bipartisan tribute to retiring Georgia Senator Johnny Isakson (R-GA). Lewis ended his remarks by doing something that is rarely seen today in our nation’s capital for a long while, he crossed the house floor to give Mr. Isakson a handshake and a hug.   

President Trump offered condolences to Congressman Lewis’ memory by ordering flags to be lowered to halve staff, while also tweeting that he was saddened to hear the news of the Civil Rights hero’s passing.

Congressman Lewis also formed a friendship with New Jersey reporter and fill-in weekend sports anchor Anthony Johnson of WABC 7, who was his boss who he said that he had the “honor” of serving as his first congressional secretary back in 1987.

In a personal conversation with his former boss as he paid a last visit to him back in January, where he asked Mr. Lewis if he ever afraid when he was on the front lines of the Civil Rights movement.

Mr. Lewis answered to Johnson, “I came to that point where I lost all sense of fear. I thought on that bridge in Selma that I just might die, and I was prepared to give it all I had.”

Johnson said of Mr. Lewis that he and the staff that worked for him new he was “funny” and “hilarious” like when he had a meeting at the White House with our 35th President John F. Kennedy (D) following the March on Washington, he intimidated the late leader of our country.

Johnson also said that he was an office instigator where during his daily activities on Capitol Hill going from meetings, votes, and political functions, he saw how his former boss never missed an opportunity to greet everyone.

Among Congressman Lewis loves according to Johnson were people, flowers, and enjoyed art, and he adored his wife in the previously mentioned Lillian. His favorite childhood story involved him preaching to his chickens on his family’s farm in Pine County, AL. He baptized the chickens, who did have names. Near the place where those chickens went to church, they named a street after the Civil Rights icon in his hometown years ago.

When Johnson asked Mr. Lewis if the world who would know his name, he said, “It really didn’t matter. It still doesn’t matter whether the people know John Lewis or not. I just tried to do a little something. I just tried to help out. That’s all.”

He added when Johnson said that the world knows who his former boss is, “Nobody know my name,” which got a laugh from his former staffer. “Just a poor boy from Alabama.”

While to others John Lewis was a person that was front and center at a very important point in our nation’s history, to Johnson, his former boss’s life was “a breath of fresh air in a sea of humanity that can often be cruel and heartless simply because of the color of a person’s skin.” “I will miss my friend.”   

Throughout his life from his late teenage years to his last breath, Mr. Lewis became a living reminder of the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement, a movement that has brought about some change in our country, with a lot more change to be made.

“When people tell me nothing will change, I just feel like saying, ‘Come and walk in my shoes,” Mr. Lewis said once on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” about how things in our country have slowly but surely have gotten better. “I will show you. I will take you to those places.”  

Information and quotations are courtesy of 7/17/2020 New York Times stories, “John Lewis, Towering Figure of Civil Rights Era, Dies at 80,” by Katharine Q. Seelye and “C.T. Vivian, Martin Luther King’s Field General, Dies at 95,” by Robert D. McFadden; 7/18/2020 and 7/19/2020 6 a.m. edition of WABC “Eyewitness News This Morning” with Mike Marza, Michelle Charlesworth, and Amy Freeze with Weather, with report from ABC News’ Trevor Ault and from New Jersey reporter and fill-in weekend sports anchor Anthony Johnson; 7/18/2020 7 a.m. edition of “CBS This Morning Saturday,” with Michelle Miller, Dana Jacobson, and Jeff Glor, with reports from political correspondent Ed O’Keefe and “CBS This Morning” anchor Gayle King; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Young; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson#Voting_Rights_Act; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Isakson; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelle_Miller; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lewis.