It’s Good to Meet You Again, King!

Obama said that he arrived at White House only due to John Lewis. Former President Barack Hussain Obama on his Inauguration Day in 2009 signed a message to John Lewis “Because of you, John.” It was a salute to his life taking the struggle for the civil rights of American citizens. His more than 44 wounds in the way of war against discrimination made the USA a place to live without in worry. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Affirmed his death on the 17^th of July, “Today, America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history.”

He was born at Troy, Alabama on the 21^st of February, 1940. His parents gave him the name of “John Robert Lewis”. His father was a sharecropper.  He married Lillian Miles Lewis; she left him for eternal on December 31, 2012. They had one child John Miles. John Robert Lewis was eager to meet his wife and friend Martin Luther King.

He did his graduation from American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961 and from Fisk University in 1967. By religion he was Baptist by heart he was a civil rights activist. From 1959 to1960 he organized student sit-in demonstrations in the Nashville area for their rights. He was one of the 13 founder Freedom fighters who protested against bus and rail segregation laws in May 1961. They challenged it and called it discrimination and insult to humanity. Blacks have equal right to sit with whites.

On August 28, 1963, he became the youngest crucial speaker at the March on Washington. Afterward, he just aced the struggle against color discrimination with Martin Luther King. He also organized a famous 1965 march of 600 people for having a right to vote from Selma to Montgomery. The day is attributed as bloody Sunday as they were attacked by police brutally.

On March 21 to 25, 1965, there were 3,000 demonstrators again marching from Selma towards Montgomery. 25000 of them succeeded to reach Montgomery. Lewis got skull fracture by police hit in one of those marches. But this fracture compelled President Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in August 1965.

Afterward, he remained stood fast and harsh to protect that holy law. He protested from his core against the suspension of one provision of it by the Supreme Court and succeeded. In subsequent elections, millions of African-Americans set off to political transformation across the South. A popular poster on those days was, “Hands that once picked cotton now can pick a President.” That opened power doors to blacks .Mr. John Lewis himself became the second African-American to be sent to Congress from Georgia.

He was a peace lover. He worked hard to bring an end to the Vietnam War. He remained chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee for many years. He remained Director of the Voter Education Project for 7 years. As a good political stroke, he was appointed as Associate Director of ACTION by President Jimmy Carter. Consequently, he selected as Atlanta city council member in 1982. He was a member of the US House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th District from 1987 till his death I guess.

He not only fought for rights of Americans but his strive was universal he got arrested outside the Embassy of Sudan on April 27, 2009, for protest against the blockade of aid to refugees in Darfur. For his lifetime civil rights fight President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom on February 15, 2011.

In the last decade, his political presence was proved a blessing for the USA.  He led a protest on June 22, 2016, on the House floor against inaction on gun control. He supported the health bill of Obama. He was a sheer critic of President Donald Trump. He thought him not legitimate due to evidence on record of Russian interference in those elections. He didn’t attend the inauguration ceremony of Donald Trump. He did the same with the inauguration of President George W. Bush in 2001.

In response to many other differences on January 14, 2017, Trump tweeted “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart (not to mention crime infested) rather than falsely complaining about the election results. All talk, talk, talk – no action or results. Sad!”

Lewis responded in one of an email “Today, Donald Trump attacked me on Twitter. He said that I’m ‘all talk’ and ‘no action.’ I’ve been beaten bloody, tear-gassed, fighting for what’s right for America. I’ve marched at Selma with Dr. King. Sometimes that’s what it takes to move our country in the right direction.”

In proceedings of impeachment of  President Trump in December 2019, Mr. Lewis’s words were so firm and convincing, He said “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, this vote may be hard. But we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.”

In July 2018 he admitted in the hospital for a night. On December 29, 2019, he revealed that he was suffering from stage 4 of pancreatic cancer and died due to the same on the 17^th of July 2020. Lewis was the last surviving member of the Big Six, which included King, James Farmer, A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young.

He was igniter of recent Black lives matter Movement. “This feels and looks so different, it is so much more massive and all-inclusive.” He said to one news channel, “There will be no turning back. Till his last days, he kept visiting peaceful protests against the demise of George Floyd. “He died on the identical day as did another resolute of the civil rights movement, the Rev. C.T. Vivian died. Vivian was close to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

He was a good writer. Comic books were his fort pass time hobby since his childhood. This made him write ‘50s comic book “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story,” based on the 1955 bus boycott.  He wrote his biography under the title of “Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement,” which was published in 1988. He also wrote the trilogy novel “March: Book One” which got published in August 2013. “March: Book Two.” Saw the daylight in January 2015. “March: Book Three” came on shelves in August 2016.

“John Lewis was an American treasure. He gave a voice to the voiceless, and he reminded each of us that the most powerful nonviolent tool is the vote. Our hearts feel empty without our friend, but we find comfort knowing that he is free at last,”- Martin Luther King III

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