Throughout his lifetime, John Lewis was a stalwart warrior for the promise of American Democracy. As a young man, he joined his mentor, Martin Luther King, Jr., in the fight for civil rights. He organized countless marches — he was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — and led the March from Selma to Montgomery when he was viciously attacked at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Despite the risk, he was undeterred in speaking out against injustice and for equality for all.
And throughout his life, he saw the fruits of his battles, including the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And in 1987, he transitioned from a civil rights activist to a member of Congress, representing Georgia’s 5th congressional district until his death in 2020.
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In 2013, during the 48th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, I was privileged to be in the audience when the Montgomery Police Chief gave John Lewis his badge in apology for a 1961 attack on him and other freedom fighters.
John Lewis was always a stalwart defender of voting rights. He was well respected by his colleagues on both sides of the aisle as a man of principle and a fearless advocate for the Voting Rights Act.
He believed that we all have a role to play in defending the ideals of American Democracy. Two days before he died, John Lewis wrote a piece in the New York Times entitled, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation.” He noted, “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.”
He urged ordinary people to get into “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
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Today, as we confront a constitutional crisis in our nation, the spirit of John Lewis looms large. Throughout American history, it has always been the people who have had to stand up and insist that its promise of freedom and equality be fulfilled. The root of the word democracy is “demos,” the common people. John Lewis understood that and never lost faith in the transformational power of the people.
As we celebrate his birthday and contributions to American Democracy, his final words in the New York Times piece reverberate: “In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the most excellent way. Now it’s your turn to let freedom ring.”
We owe it to the legacy of John Lewis’ life of service to answer his end-of-life plea not to sit silent but to do our part to ensure that a robust American democracy continues.