July 19, 2020
It seems impossibly cruel that we would lose both Reverend C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis on the same day. During what feels like the darkest period in this country’s history, it is hard to imagine living in an America without these two moral exemplars.
Both men were tutored in the philosophy of nonviolent resistance by the Reverend James Lawson. Both men were arrested multiple times. Both C.T. Vivian and John Lewis were nearly killed for the “crime” of standing up for the civil rights of Black people. The famous photos of John Lewis being viciously beaten by a state trooper as he stood at the head of a phalanx of marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
From those searing moments until their deaths on Friday, the moral clarity of both men never wavered. Rev. Vivian spent decades building organizations to foster opportunities for Black people and combat White supremacist groups (Source: “C.T. Vivian, Martin Luther King’s Field General Dies at 95,” by Robert D. McFadden, The New York Times, 7/17/20).
John Lewis went from being one of the first Freedom Riders in 1961, to the youngest speaker at The March on Washington in 1963, to leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to Congress in 1986. John Lewis, known as the Conscience of the Congress, voted against the Gulf War in 1991 and boycotted, not only Trump’s inauguration in 2017, but that of George W. Bush. Lewis did all of this while exuding humility and grace, extolling the virtue of striving to build “beloved community.”
If we are honest with ourselves, our grief is mingled with fear. We have a federal government that seems determined to allow the Coronavirus pandemic to ravage the country unchecked, heedless of how many Americans die. The Trump administration has refused to take even minimal steps to protect Americans. As The New York Times detailed yesterday, the singular focus of this White House was to shift the responsibility for managing the pandemic to the states. The Trump administration cherry-picked data and ignored the human risk in their ignorant eagerness to pass the buck, (Source: “Inside Trump’s Failure: The Rush to Abandon Leadership Role on the Virus,” by Michael D. Shear, Noah Weiland, Eric Lipton, Maggie Haberman and David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 7/18/20). The Times described the administration’s approach as “not just a misjudgment…[but a] deliberate strategy” that Trump pursued even “as evidence mounted that, in the absence of strong leadership from the White House, the virus would continue to infect and kill large numbers of Americans.” The Trump administration is the textbook example of what happens when the Dunning-Kruger Effect meets depraved sociopathy.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, unidentified camo-clad thugs on the federal payroll have been snatching protestors off the street and abducting them in unmarked vans. Although this was clearly an authoritarian abuse of power, the “official” explanation from Acting DHS Secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, was that these were CPB and ICE officers supporting Federal Protective Services in safeguarding federal property, (Source: “DHS Official on Reports of Federal Officers Detaining Protesters in Portland, Oregon,” Transcript of Cuccinelli Interview by Sarah McCammon, All Things Considered, npr.org. 7/17/20). Alarmed observers made analogies to Chile under Pinochet or Argentina’s Dirty War, but as C.T. Vivian and John Lewis could attest, we have examples much closer to home of a violent governmental response to the lawful exercise of one’s civil rights.
Given these developments, it is understandably tough to do as John Lewis commanded and hold onto hope. Yet, if we want to honor John Lewis and C.T. Vivian, we must “never give up, never give in.” We are mourning right now because we think a light has been extinguished. We’ve forgotten how to recognize a torch being passed.
Rest In Power, John Lewis
Rest In Power, C.T. Vivian
#VOTE
#March