John Lewis

Today we learned of the death of John Lewis, one of the genuine heroes of American history. One of the last links to the civil rights movement of the '50s and ''60s, he went on to become an influential member of the House of Representatives. He was awarded the Presidential Medal Of Freedom, and even won a National Book Award for a graphic novel, March, depicting his involvement in the struggle.

Lewis was born in poverty to sharecroppers in Alabama. Going to college at Fisk University in Nashville, he organized sit-ins at lunch counters in that city that led to integration. He was one of the first Freedom Riders, that sought to enforce the Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregation on interstate transportation. For his trouble he was arrested several times (forty times during his lifetime) and nearly killed in a Montgomery bus station.

He was one of the "Big Six" (and the last to leave us) who organized the March on Washington in 1963 (he was also the last living speaker at that event). In 1965, he was again almost killed when his skull was fractured during the march to Selma across the Edmund Pettis Bridge. I was heartened to see that there are calls to rename that bridge in his honor (he does have a US Navy ship named after him).

Lewis was elected to congress in 1986 and was re-elected by whopping margins every election after that. While he never was a wheeler-dealer or power-grabber, he became known as the conscience of the body. He was one of the most liberal congressman, taking stands whenever he could, such as boycotting the inaugurations of both George W. Bush and Donald Trump (I was astounded to read that Trump didn't have something snarky to say upon Lewis' death, and ordered flags lowered to half-mast--though Trump did once take a shot at Lewis by saying his Atlanta district was crime-ridden).

Thinking about Lewis and the men and women he worked with during the civil rights struggle is a reminder of what an amazing group of people these were. Their courage is mind-boggling. With all the talk of statues of Confederates coming down, they should be replaced with the likes of Lewis, and Medgar Evers, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins, Hosea Williams, Diane Nash, and Julian Bond. In fact, the carving at Stone Mountain, in Georgia, which features Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis, should be sand blasted and those figures replaced by Martin Luther King and Lewis. They are the true American heroes.