John Lewis is one of the few architects of the modern Civil
Rights Movement still living, having moved from the firebrand voice of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Congressman from Georgia to
elder statesman of today’s social justice leadership. His extraordinary life is
the subject of a Netflix documentary which starts streaming on Friday,
July 3.
Amid the recent weeks of protests following the murder of George Floyd by a former Minneapolis police officer videotaped kneeling on Floyd’s neck for eight minutes and 46 seconds, Congress Lewis tweeted, “I know your pain, your rage, your sense of despair and hopelessness…”
On the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965 law
enforcement officers beat a young John Lewis and dozens of marchers headed to
Montgomery, the state capital, where they planned to press their case for
voting rights. Lewis suffered a skull fracture that day which is known as
‘Bloody Sunday.’
Political Science professor Dr. Sekou Franklin says,
“He was part of a leadership cadre of extraordinary people. Part of the
challenge that we have is we have to balance our profound appreciation of John
Lewis, and if we stop there, we will mythologize John Lewis.”
Franklin mentions Charley Cobb, Diane Nash, James Lawson,
C.T. Vivian, Wyatt T. Walker, and Dorothy Cotton as contemporaries of Lewis and
believes they are also worthy subjects for documentaries.
Decades after Selma, Congressman John Lewis is pushing for
major policing reforms in America, tweeting his support just days ago for the
#JusticeInPolicing Act.
Washington, D.C. is a long way from the Troy, Alabama farm
where he grew up and his parents were sharecroppers. Listening to radio reports
of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956, Lewis says he decided to become involved
in the efforts to advance justice for Black Americans. He graduated from the
American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville and then received his
bachelor’s degree from Fisk University.
Both academic institutions are close to Middle Tennessee
State where Franklin teaches. According to Franklin, Lewis learned his
nonviolent techniques from James Lawson.
“One of my mentors is James Lawson,” Franklin says. “He was
the principal figure who trained the national movement…Lewis came out of the
Nashville movement.”
Now, at the age of 80, John Lewis is widely considered an
American hero for his lifetime of moral courage. In December Congressman he
disclosed he is battling pancreatic
cancer but has remained committed to his work on Capitol Hill and around
the country, fighting for equality as he did decades ago with SNCC.
