Remembering John Lewis

By Cole Manley

I was going to post about something else entirely, something more directly connected to running. But I feel compelled to write about John Lewis, who died yesterday (on the same day we lost Rev. C.T. Vivian). I’m writing this minutes after I learned about John Lewis’ death, with recordings of his speeches and interviews playing in the background from news coverage. It all feels so fresh that I am a bit unsure about what to say, how to process what feels like such a personal and devastating loss, even though I never met John Lewis. But, in many ways, I feel like Lewis’ honesty, character, and courage made us all connected to him on a very human level.

I remember first learning about Lewis’ role in the Black struggle for freedom in the United States in high school, when I was lucky enough to learn about social movement history from my teacher Cathy Schager. At Stanford, with my professor Clayborne Carson, I began to understand how Lewis related to other civil rights activists, how his embrace of Gandhian nonviolence developed through a Nashville school of organizers (nearby, Rosa Parks had deepened her own commitment to nonviolent protest at the Highlander Folk School). I remembered Dr. Carson telling stories about the Freedom Riders and about the role of youth in social movements. The Freedom Riders were students, and Lewis was just 21 when he joined the protest to desegregate interstate bus travel, risking his life in the process.

The courage of these students in putting their bodies on the line was a powerful lesson for myself, at the time a 19 year-old who saw what real commitment to social movements meant. Along with freedom fighters such as Martin Luther King, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Glenn Smiley, I became obsessed with studying and learning everything I could about nonviolent protest.

The summer after my first college courses on 20th century US History, I devoured books on Gandhian nonviolence, searching for intellectual and moral signposts in my own education and development as a thinker, writer, and activist. I would later come to question certain aspects of Gandhian ideology--particularly a kind of moral perfectionism surrounding sexuality and questionable gender politics--, but, at the time, I was enamored with the optimism at the heart of Gandhi’s thinking. It was that optimism--that belief that humans do have a capacity for change, that structural injustices can be overcome--that I saw throughout Lewis’ life.

When you are a young person reading about social movements, you look for leaders, for people whose lives can inspire you as you search for meaning and for truth. John Lewis was one of those people for me. I remember watching and re-watching the Eyes on the Prize series in high school and college. One of the indelible scenes from the series focuses on the Selma to Montgomery March, the protests for voting rights which contributed to the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But before Lewis and the marchers made their way some 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery, they were viciously attacked and beaten by local and state law enforcement as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge (which should be renamed the John Lewis Bridge). How did Lewis respond to this near-death experience? He returned to the Bridge to finish the March when it resumed days later.

For young activists today, John Lewis’ life is an inspiration. It is a call to action. And it’s a reminder of how long movements can take. The struggle for voting rights continues. And when the coalition of civil rights organizations broke apart in the late 1960s, and Lewis found himself holding onto nonviolence as other ideologies gained momentum, he remained committed to the struggle. He eventually became a veteran representative and the “conscience” of Congress, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama. Throughout his life in politics, in the halls of power, he never lost the fundamental principles that he had demonstrated as a Freedom Rider. He opposed the war in Iraq and voted against military spending. Later, he spoke powerfully against the separation of kids from their families. It was the kind of moving and forceful oratory that had so captivated listeners at the 1963 March on Washington, when a 23 year-old Lewis called on the crowd to march through the streets of the US South demanding justice.

In some ways, John Lewis’ death is sad because he passed during a dark time in our country’s history. We need his voice, his clarity, and his courage. But, in other ways, I am so happy that he got to see the abundance and flourishing of the Black Lives Matter movement, a movement of young leaders who are carrying on his legacy. I hope that, fifty years from now, we still remember and talk about Lewis. I hope that out of the memorials to his life we may re-dedicate ourselves to the movements we find ourselves in, to the people around us. I hope, most of all, that we can continue to hope. John Lewis said it best on Twitter in 2018: “Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

This obituary for John Lewis provides a good overview of his life. I'll be posting again soon. Until then, as always, please let me know if you have any comments or questions at marathontojustice@gmail.com.