It is impossible to briefly summarize the importance of Congressman John Lewis, D-George, who succumbed to pancreatic cancer July 17. His mother urged him to avoid trouble; he chose “good trouble.”
An organizer and speaker at Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 March on Washington, he was invited to the White House by President Kennedy who praised their effort. But he’d begun his activism at lunch counter sit-ins and as a “Freedom Rider.” Beaten and arrested, he said, “What more can they do you?”
As he led the 1964 march across Selma Alabama’s Pettus Bridge, his skull was fractured by a police club. Dying this way, in his view, was better than submitting to segregation — a spiritual death. In 1968 he was devoted to Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign in California. Voting rights for all and reasonable gun laws were central during his 35 years of leadership in Congress. His was always a powerful and compelling voice, one that will be deeply missed.
Carl Doerner
Charlemont