As a part 2 to last week’s post, I want to continue talking about John Lewis and non-violent direct action. The church I attend has a Peace Candle that we take turns lighting and sharing some words with the congregation. While I didn’t explicitly mention climate change, the struggles of racial justice are intertwined with climate justice, as the dichotomy between the haves and the have-nots continues to often be split along racial lines. This is what I said today:
On Monday, October 7, I went to a book reading and signing at the Flynn Theatre. It was quite a humbling and inspiring experience. Perhaps you saw excerpts from that evening on Vermont Public Television or heard parts on Vermont Public Radio. The following abridged article written in The Guardian from August 16, 2016 sums up why I left humbled and inspired:
“Of all the hats Georgia congressman John Lewis has worn over his more than 50 years in public life as a protester, activist and representative for Georgia’s fifth district, perhaps none is more unexpected than that of comic book protagonist.
“But now, nearly eight years after the idea was hatched for the March trilogy – a graphic novel memoir of Lewis’s experiences in the civil rights movement – Lewis hopes it will help inspire a new generation to get into what he likes to call “good trouble”, and help young Americans understand how far the nation has come.
““I don’t think I’ve changed much. I still consider myself an activist,” he says. “I tell people all the time if you see something that is not fair, not right, and not just, then you have a moral obligation to do something about it – to get in the way, to get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
“Recently, Lewis got in the way during a June 2016 sit-in to protest congressional inaction on gun control after the mass shooting that left 49 dead in an Orlando nightclub. That time, the protest ended without confrontation. For Lewis, that makes it an outlier. The 75-year-old has been arrested more than 40 times in his life, and five times since he was elected to Congress nearly 30 years ago. Lewis added with pride: “I’ll probably get arrested again.”
“Many of those arrests are depicted in the more than 500 pages of illustrated civil rights history covered in the March trilogy.
“The series, first released in 2013, covers virtually every major civil rights moment of the 1950s and 1960s, from Rosa Parks’ arrest on a Montgomery city bus to the 1965 Bloody Sunday attack by police and deputized white civilians on protesters who were peacefully walking over the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. That event left Lewis with scars on his head that are still visible.
“The medium of a graphic novel might seem counterintuitive for such heavy subject matter. It was certainly without precedent as a publication by a sitting congressman. But in fact, a little-known and sparingly pressed comic, the 1956 publication Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, served as an integral part of Lewis’s early civil rights education in the principles and practices of non-violence. “It became like our Bible, our guide. It influenced so many of us,” Lewis says.
“The comic told the story of how black Montgomery citizens organized and used nonviolent resistance to protest and ultimately overturn Jim Crow segregation on buses in Montgomery and throughout the state of Alabama. Published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a faith-based nonviolent action fellowship, the 14-page illustrated account of the Montgomery bus boycott has remained popular with activists around the globe for decades. It played a major inspirational role in the 2011 Arab spring protests in Egypt, for example.
“The congressman’s fond memories of the work are much of the reason why, when one of his staffers raised the idea of a graphic novel portrayal of Lewis’s stories from the movement, he was willing to at least give it some thought.
““Finally, he said: OK, I’ll do it, but only if you write it with me,” said Andrew Aydin, a coauthor of the book.
“Lewis said he saw the value in retelling the story of the civil rights movement as, essentially, an illustrated collection of memoirs because of the format’s accessibility to audiences of different ages. “When I first moved to Atlanta, I used to attend Dr. Martin Luther King Sr’s church, and sometimes his son [King Jr] would be preaching. And Daddy King, as we called him, would say: ‘Make it plain, son, make it plain,’” Lewis recounted. Producing March “in the form of a graphic novel is making it plain and making it simple”.
“By making it plain, Lewis and Aydin are confident that the book can have a significant and sustained impact on a new generation of activists and protesters. “These smart, gifted young people are picking up where we left off,” Lewis said of the Black Lives Matter movement, praising the numerous nonviolent marches and acts of civil disobedience it has initiated. But March is also a cautionary tale. “Don’t make the same mistakes that we made. Stay focused,” Lewis said. “Never hate, never become bitter, never become hostile.” And on this point, Lewis believes modern activists would do well to copy the discipline and preparation of his generation.
““We had so called ‘do’s and don’ts’, and we lived by those. The day the first mass arrest occurred in Nashville, Tennessee, every single student arrested, all 89 of us, had a copy on them,” Lewis said, adding: “Discipline is everything.” The “don’ts” included not to “strike back nor curse if abused”. The “dos” included to “remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Love and nonviolence is the way.”
“And for Lewis, while the names and faces, and the exact contours of racial oppression, have certainly changed over the past half-century, the strategy has not. Lewis added: “Our struggle is not a struggle for a few days, a few weeks, a few months or a few years – it is a struggle of a lifetime.””
To conclude, ponder these questions:
- what “good trouble, necessary trouble” are you going to engage in as a Christian when you see something that is not fair, not right, and not just?
- How are you going to proclaim the Message, the Good News, with intensity, while still “keeping it simple”?
- In other words, how are you going to do a thorough job as God’s servant?
While this was (naturally) directed toward a Christian congregation, I truly believe that the central message of altruism — selfless concern for the well-being of others — can transcend any religion. Many of us were taught the Golden Rule as children. When we don’t “do to others as we would have others do to us”, that strips the “others” of any sort of dignity, often denying them the ability to realize “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I don’t believe that’s a fulfilling way to live life.
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