Today was the funeral of Congressman and Civil Rights legend John Lewis in Atlanta, Georgia.
Barack Obama spoke at his funeral, as did George W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
Donald Trump wasn't there.
The Bible verse I quoted was from Bush's speech.
John Lewis, activist, Baptist minister, civil rights leader, freedom rider, preacher and teacher of nonviolence, and Representative for Georgia's 6th Congressional District, was born in 1940 to poor Sharecroppers in Alabama, and by his teenage years he was a Civil Rights activist, a freedom rider working to desegregate busing in the South, an organizer of Civil Rights marches who was beaten during the "Bloody Sunday" attack on the Selma To Montgomery marchers and one of the "Big Six" organizers of the March on Washington. He was elected to Congress in 1986 and served long enough to become Dean of Georgia's Congressional Delegation. He was also one of the few Congressmen who voted against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. John Lewis never wavered in his commitment to freedom, to nonviolence and to peace.
In these days of the Trump administration actively trying to start a civil war while gravely mishandling the COVID-19 Pandemic response I cannot help but feel John Lewis will be missed, and should be.
On the very day that Donald Trump Tweets some stupid shit about trying to delay the election, only to be told "No" by pretty much everybody including members of his own party, we need more people like John Lewis.
Herman Cain passed away today as well, and of course Republicans can wax eloquent about him, saying that he exemplifies the American story, but so does John Lewis...to rise from utter poverty and powerlessness in a State and time where he was by custom and by law a second-class citizen, to the halls of power and the leadership of one of America's two great political parties is to me the archetypal example of American greatness...and I say that as a person who was of the other party for a majority of my adult life, and who definitely skewed conservative before that.
The truth is, there are some things that fame is no good for, that money cannot buy, and that worldly power cannot achieve on its own.
John Lewis understood that.
And we are a poorer nation and people for the fact that much of America does not.
As Republicans like Bill Barr and Tom Cotton seek to Immanentize the Eschaton of their shitty beliefs, to make a god of Self and Selfishness, the life and truth of John Lewis points us to a better way. Either we are all free, or none of us are. The chain that is "Us" is only as strong as its weakest link. We are all in this together.
Together we rise, or none of us do.
The life and work of John Lewis shows the conservative Eschaton to be nothing but a lie. Of course Trump wasn't going to go to his funeral. Of course Bill Barr was going to lie to Congress while John Lewis lay in state in the same building.
That's what these people are. Their contempt for everybody else is shown in the mirror that is people like John Lewis.
Nearly two weeks ago, John Lewis passed into the afterlife and strode through the gates of the heavenly city, on the day after Federal agents began attacking and abducting protesters in Portland at the behest of the Attorney General.
I cannot help but think he chose this time to check out so that we might take a look at his life and be reminded in this time of lies and fake presidents and quack doctors that there is such a thing as the Truth, and grow stronger from that recognition.
Goodbye, brother, rest in power.
Our nation is founded on the principle that we do not have kings. We have presidents. And the Constitution is our compass. When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something. To do something. Our children and their children will ask us, ‘What did you do? What did you say?' For some, he concluded, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history. ~John Lewis
Part Five.
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