Today any one of us who was ever touched by Congressman John Lewis is surely thinking of him and his good life. Thinking of all the ways he influenced our own lives - this gentle man who could speak with the preacher’s thunder.
Word came this morning that Mr. Lewis has passed, and there is a hole in our hearts. The feeling today is one of sadness and great loss, of course, but it’s mixed with awe and admiration and love. And we are left to ponder, as we should, what any of us might do now to honor how he lived his life.
Certainly there are things we can, you and I. We can go vote when the day comes. We can speak out for justice. We can remember the difference between right and wrong. We can reach out to one another. We can remember John Lewis.
He lived for justice. And freedom. And voting rights. And democracy. And all the other good things our flawed, imperfect nation has stood for since its founding. John Lewis believed our union could be perfected, that all men and women shared a kinship in their souls. This is why he stirred up what he called “Good Trouble” - which he did to the end of his days.
On my bookshelf at home stands a cherished keepsake: It is my own well-thumbed copy of David Halberstam’s The Children. Its pages tell the stories of Mr. Lewis, and of the Rev. C.T. Vivian, and of all the brave young women and men who were students in Nashville when they made history. They both signed my copy.
Like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who died on the same July 4, the deaths of Lewis and Vivian on the same July 17 is another great coincidence of our American history now.
I know I am but one of millions who are searching today for words worthy of what passed from us on Friday. At the end of last December, when we learned that Mr. Lewis had been diagnosed with cancer, I wrote the Field Note below. I was hoping to place his life and career in a fuller context, at least for my own reckoning, in the town where he “soared into history.”
I reprint it here now, prayerfully and with great respect, because I can do no better on this mournful day.
o
December 30, 2019
“Where Did the Courage Come From?”
Word came on Sunday that Congressman John Lewis of Georgia is gravely ill. The diagnosis: Pancreatic cancer, Stage 4.
His office told reporters, in Mr. Lewis’ own words, that he intends to fight back and plans to lick this latest foe. He is a man who has fought many fights, and most often he has triumphed. This man of great strength, great courage, and great heart.
John Lewis has been a member of Congress for 20 years. Elected ten times. Health permitting, he could be elected ten times more. For those who remember the path he has walked (and we should all remember) you know he is as connected to Nashville as to Atlanta.
It was here that he came to college and seminary, at Fisk University and American Baptist. Here this man of modest height grew tall in history. Here, when he was 20, he was arrested and jailed with other peaceful but determined young people for daring to integrate lunch counters on Church Street.
That’s when his prestige and theirs soared into history.
o
If you ever met John Lewis, this man who paired a kind and knowing smile with the preacher’s thunder, you did not forget him. I was blessed to meet him three times, once in Atlanta, a chance encounter in a shopping mall, and twice more in private homes in Nashville:
1. I was walking through the Lenox Mall in Buckhead when I spotted the congressman talking with two other men. I couldn’t resist telling him I was from Nashville, how much we appreciate him and his story here. He shook my hand, and I remember he described Nashville as “the beloved city.” That expression, from the Bible, was not original with Mr. Lewis but he said it a lot about Nashville. So formative was his time here as a young man.
2. The second time, in November of 1998, was at the home of Pam and Phil Pfeffer. Phil was then president of the publisher Random House, and the evening reception was to honor both David Halberstam on the publication of The Children, and also the people he had written about. It is now the primary reference on how all those students had helped to ignite the national Movement in 1960 – the courage it took, how they suffered verbal and physical abuse to bring about justice, and the long-term examples they set.
I caught up with Pfeffer this morning. He reminded me that this reception had been the first time so many of the original Freedom Riders and Nashville students had re-convened in Nashville. To this day, on my own bookshelf, is my copy of The Children. In its front pages are the signatures and sentiments of Congressman Lewis, Hank Thomas, Gloria Johnson-Powell, George Barrett, Dr. C.T. Vivian, the Rev. Jim Lawson, and of John Seigenthaler, among others there that night. I cannot scan the names without realizing so many of these are gone now.
3. The third time was fourteen years later, at Seigenthaler’s home in Whitworth. The congressman had returned to Nashville that day for a midday tribute event honoring his old friend. Seigenthaler had invited several dozen of his other friends, mostly from the newspaper days, over to meet Mr. Lewis.
At a point in the evening, Seigenthaler called for silence. He said he was going to ask Rep. Lewis to say a few words, and that as our host he would then open a brief period of Q&A. The congressman then spoke with great eloquence and strong feeling of the days of sit-ins, arrests, and the rough stuff. And he spoke of how the fight must continue in our present day, because discrimination may be less visible but is still insidious.
There were a half-dozen questions, but I only remember one. It was Seigenthaler who asked it, and it stilled the room:
“John Lewis, but where did the courage come from?”
This man who had been beaten and bloodied in his youth, who had persevered and rose into history, gave his answer and it reminded me of Halberstam’s words in The Children:
“Jim Lawson had prepared them well. He had taught them what to expect. Most important of all, they had each other. There was strength not so much in their numbers, although that helped, but in their shared belief. Jail was not crushing; it was, (Lewis) thought to his amazement, liberating.”
God bless John Lewis.
Much love, and deepest respect, from your Beloved City.
