.repjohnlewis will never lose hope. A conversation with the congressman and civil-rights legend about the necessity of optimism, by zakcheneyrice
Lewis was arrested 40 times as an activist. He has been arrested five times since becoming a member of Congress. Photo: Michael Avedon John Lewis has seen a lot in his 80 years, from a modest youth as the third of ten children in an Alabama sharecropping family, to a brutal and exhilarating early adulthood in the civil-rights movement, to his storied tenure in Congress, where he’s represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1987.
What people did then, it appealed to the conscience of the American people. People couldn’t take it. They couldn’t understand it. Taking the beating and thrown in jail. People pouring hot water, hot coffee on us. We changed the attitude of hundreds of thousands of people. Studying and being trained in the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence, it helped to make me stronger, wiser, gave me a greater sense of determination, and if it hadn’t been for my coming under the influence of Martin Luther King Jr., James Lawson, and wonderful, wonderful colleagues, students, the young people … I don’t think I would have survived the beatings, the arrests. We became a family. We depended on each other. And if I had an opportunity to do it all over again, I would do it.
Yes, I have. Makes you cry. Makes you sick. You say to yourself, How many more? How long? How long? That’s why I’m very hopeful. That’s why I’m really optimistic about this upcoming election. [President Trump] cannot tell a lie over and over again when people have the photographs, the videos. A great many of these problems we’ll be able to solve through the power of the ballot. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democratic society. And it’s why people didn’t want people of color to come register to vote, because you have power that you can use.
It is my belief that we must work on a national level as well as a local level. That we need to humanize police forces, humanize the people, whoever is in charge of the police department at the local level but also at the national level. Well, I wouldn’t say there are major differences. I think my generation of young people was greatly influenced by the teachings of Martin Luther King Jr. and by individuals like James Lawson. And we dedicated ourselves to creating what we called the loving community. We wanted to do what we called “redeem the soul of America.” We wanted to save America from herself.
Oh yes. You have to find ways from time to time to dramatize, to make real the process that we’re in the process of making. You have to find ways to inspire, educate, and change people. And you have to continue to center people. Well, it made me very sad. I gave a little blood on that bridge in Selma to get the Voting Rights Act passed. But things are going to change again. I’m convinced that we have the ability, we have the capacity, to hold on to the House and take the Senate.
What makes you so optimistic when Trump has already won once and when voter suppression has been used successfully, at least at the state level, for the past ten years? What has been your most hopeful moment as a legislator? The time when you think things have come the closest to the vision that you were advancing when you were an activist?
I’m sure you’ve seen that President Trump has become increasingly authoritarian in regard to the protests, with his threats of deploying the military. What do you think Congress’s role is in keeping protesters safe from him, and what solutions are you and your colleagues considering? In my younger days, I said, “You tell us to wait and tell us to be patient. It cannot wait. We cannot be patient. We want our freedom, and we want it now.” And so, when I hear the young people, it’s not new for me. It’s very inspiring and uplifting. I think we need people to come along every so often who have the energy and the fire to push and pull.
My recommendation is don’t give up on the party, hang in there, and let’s have changes from the inside. Become a leader in the party and organize other people to become leaders, to make the party more progressive, more liberal.
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