On the Anniversary of the Death of John Lewis

To my Sierra County neighbors,

Five years ago today (7/17/2020), this country lost a great patriot. This was a man who, unlike every member of the current regime in Washington, D.C., was honest, ethical, moral, compassionate — as well as passionate. He was passionate about the promise of our country — passionate about democracy — passionate about equality — passionate about freedom — passionate about the rights of all people.

John Lewis was born into a family of black sharecroppers in Alabama in 1940 — in the heartlessness and tainted soul of the racism that has infected every age of this nation’s history. From there, he rose to a position of respected leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives — a position he held at the time of his death. But, his road wasn’t easy — nor did he ever try to take the easy, comfortable way for himself, when others were hurting. Here are just a few of the milestones along the way of an incredible life and career:

he was one of the 13 original Freedom Riders;

as such, he was, at age 21, the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted, when he tried to enter a whites-only waiting room;

he was chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC);

he was the youngest of the “Big Six” leaders who organized the March on Washington in 1963;

he was the 4th of 12 speakers on the program that day — which ended with one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream”;

he coordinated SNCC’s efforts for Freedom Summer in Mississippi in 1964;

he helped lead over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday (March 7, 1965);

during that march, his skull was fractured by the waiting Alabama State Troopers (scars that he bore for the rest of his life);

he served as associate director of ACTION, responsible for the VISTA program, during the Carter administration;

he served on the Atlanta City Council from 1981 to 1986;

he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s 5th Congressional District in 1986;

he was re-elected 18 times;

in Congress, he spoke out in support of gay rights and national health insurance;

he opposed the 1991 Gulf War;

he opposed the Clinton administration’s welfare reform, saying, after it passed, “Where is the sense of decency? What does it profit a great nation to conquer the world, only to lose its soul?”;

he was an early opponent of the Iraq War;

he made an annual pilgrimage to Alabama to retrace the route he marched in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery;

upon the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, Lewis said, “If you ask me whether the election…is the fulfillment of Dr. King’s dream, I say, ‘No, it’s just a down payment.’”;

in 1988, he introduced a bill to create a national African American museum in Washington, D.C.;

after it failed, he continued to re-introduce the bill for 15 years, until it was finally passed and signed into law in 2003;

in 2016, he compared Donald Trump to former Alabama Governor George Wallace — “I’ve been around a while and Trump reminds me so much of a lot of the things that George Wallace said and did. I think demagogues are pretty dangerous, really…We shouldn’t divide people, we shouldn’t separate people.”

Some of us will gather in Downieville today to honor John Lewis and the example and legacy he left for us. We will lift up his memory. We will also lift up his words: “Our struggle is a struggle to redeem the soul of America. It’s not a struggle that last for a few days, a few weeks, a few months, or a few years. It is the struggle of a lifetime, more than one lifetime.” “Speak up, speak out, get in the way. Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” “If not us, then who? If not now, then when?”

Paul Guffin

Downieville