John Lewis was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1987, serving until his death on July 17, 2020. He represented Georgia’s 5th congressional district. Lewis was a key figure in the Civil Rights Movement, participating in the first mass sit-ins and Freedom Rides. He was just 23 years old when he spoke at the March on Washington in 1963 alongside Martin Luther King Jr. His speech on that August day ended: “‘Wake up America! Wake up! For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.”
An earlier version of his speech was vetoed by religious and movement leaders because it was considered to be too fiery and radical. Just minutes before he was to speak, Lewis was huddled in a small anteroom behind the statue of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial with Martin Luther King and iconic leaders of the movement as they reviewed his speech word by word, banging out the revised version on a portable typewriter. The young Lewis had fire in his belly and was told he must tone it down! He listened to his elders, but was determined to deliver a speech with a much different tone than that of his hero—Martin Luther King. Later, New Yorker editor David Remnick said it this way, “Certainly King’s speech was the most eloquent that day. But the most ferocious was John Lewis’s.”
John Lewis was jailed multiple times for engaging in nonviolent protests and acts of civil disobedience. On Sunday, March 7, 1965 he led a march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery in support of voting rights for Black Americans. As the protesters crossed the now infamous Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by law enforcement officers armed with tear gas, whips and batons. John Lewis’s skull was fractured in that brutal attack. The televised images of the assault galvanized national support for passing the 1965 Voting Rights Act later that year. How ironic that just two years after his much toned down speech at the Lincoln Memorial, his peaceful, non-violent march for voting rights resulted in such state sanctioned violence.
Did You Know:
Lewis’s last public appearance was in June of 2020. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer just months before and was very ill but wanted to visit the newly erected Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington D.C. He said that he was inspired by the national protests that had erupted in response to the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter Movement that emerged in response to the horror of his murder. Lewis was deeply moved by the ‘social proof’ of the Black Lives Matter movement and how it was memorialized by the BLM Plaza saying that:
"That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on."
In March of this year, the Black Lives Plaza mural was removed following pressure from Republicans in Congress who threatened to withhold federal funding from the city unless the mural was removed and the plaza renamed.
Why It Matters:
Our country has suffered through a hostile takeover of our government and serial attacks on our freedoms since January 20, 2025. Congress is no longer a co-equal branch of governance, the Robert’s court serves at the pleasure of the executive branch, the Department of Justice has been weaponized against everyday citizens. The social safety net that protects the most vulnerable of us has been shredded, and that shredding is just the beginning. Barberic concentration camps are being established across the country to house those abducted for no other crime than being suspected, often without proof, of being here illegally—which is a civil offense not a crime.
The president of the United States threatens to revoke citizenship of those whom he dislikes or dare to speak against him. Aid to foreign countries has been halted, food is being destroyed that would save the lives of dying children if allowed to be distributed before it rots in the ports. Our families and children are dying from catastrophic floods and natural disasters while the leaders of FEMA engage in gaslighting and delay life-saving search and rescue missions because their subordinates must wait for approval before acting. Public Broadcasting is being defunded, long considered a gold standard for news, information and compelling programming. Legacy media cowers in fear of being retaliated against if they print news that isn’t sane-washed or white-washed. Public health is under attack, science is considered to be a ‘woke’ conspiracy, intellectualism is considered politically dangerous to those in power.
Governor Braun and every Indiana elected GOP politician stand in solidarity with the authoritarian takeover.
America, we must wake up! We must make some good trouble, necessary trouble if we are to reverse this tsunami of cruelty and authoritarianism that has hit our shores. If not now, when?
What You Can Do:
This day, July 17th, is designated as a day of action to respond to the attacks on our civil and human rights in commemoration of the legacy of John Lewis. Attend a Good Trouble Lives On event near you. Host a simple gathering of family, friends or neighbors and talk about what you personally have experienced over these past several months as an act of truth telling and solidarity. Hold a mini rally at a corner in your neighborhood with signs that bear witness to this moment. Engage in community service or conduct a prayer vigil for the lives lost due to policy decisions by this regime. Have a freedom concert on your porch or front yard with a play list of civil rights resistance songs and connect with one another in your own ‘beloved community’.
In a conversation with Krista Tippett in 2016, John Lewis said that an important question that he asked himself was “What if the beloved community were already a reality, the true reality, and we simply had to embody it until everyone else can see it?”
Perhaps our collective work is to embody the ‘beloved community’ in our words, our thoughts, our actions. What would that look like for you? Whatever it might be, do it!
Making good trouble together,
Debbie & H4D Team