John Robert Lewis, Civil Rights Icon, our huge loss and sadly missed

John Robert Lewis left us on Friday July 17th 2020, having witnessed the cronic racism that still exists in his home country.

If you do not know John Robert Lewis, he was a tremendously influential civil rights leader. An extraordinary force of a man who overshadowed his opponents. Who were predominantly privileged white men.

It is impossible to fully appreciate the brilliance of John Lewis here, but I will try.

The Fight Against Racism

Racism is a disease that still festers in the US, Europe and beyond.

It seems that we must exist in a world that still tolerates perpetual hatred from white people to black people in the year 2023.

In John Lewis’ own words “I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.”

The foundations for today’s fight against racism were laid by John Robert Lewis and others like him, who worked fearlessly, and who witnessed and personally endured such violent hatred.

Very few here can come close to comprehending the brutality that John Lewis will have endured in his life to gain respect as a human being. To live a normal life in a white dominated world, and a white dominated United States of America.

To appreciate just how significant John Lewis was as a civil rights icon who fought for justice equality and respect, we must first get an insight in to who he was as a person.

John Robert Lewis, the person

John Lewis was a man who had a non-violent perspective on American civil rights for African Americans. He was a Freedom Rider at the tender age of just 21. This gives us an early profile of the extraordinary man that he was to become.

By aged only 23 years, John Lewis was leading the highly effective Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was already influencing US American treatment of African American's in the US.

What an extraordinary achievement in itself. But he was only just starting out on his journey to make lives better for Americans of African descent.

John Lewis and the Early Days in the Fight Against US Racism

The treatment of the black American population in the southern US states was appalling, and triggered a measured response from the newly formed SNCC back in 1960.

A non-violent sit-in movement was formed, and targeted places where segregation existed, such as white only eating establishments and department stores. The impact was powerful.

Further to this, as the decade progressed, the deliberate exclusion of black voters in local southern elections needed to be confronted.

The black population in the southern US states were deliberately excluded from voting in elections by various technicalities.

The completng of forms that were not necessary, and that much of the black population in the south were not able to do due to the complexity.

Many potential black voters were not able to complete these forms and cast their vote, and as a result the white rulers achieved their objective.

It was the SNCC activists, led by John Lewis, that highlighted the incapacity of much of the African American population to register their votes through determined action.

With support from Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the efforts of the SNCC resulted ultimately in the passing by US congress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was a tough journey, and Lewis was still only 25 years old.

These new rights for the black community led to the legal right to vote without having to follow a set of fabricated rules that would preclude the majority of them from voting.

The Racist World That John Lewis Entered

When we reflect on the tireless work of John Lewis, and the tremendous impact that he forced on America’s epitome, we should take a closer look at the social landscape that he was born in to on February 21st 1940.

Following the British colonial period, slavery existed officially in the US from 1776 until Dec 1865, when a thirteenth amendment to the US constitution was ratified, banning slavery.

Although the northern US states largely abolished slavery by 1805, it was still actively fostered in the southern states, due largely to a growing demand for labour in support of the cotton industry, and the greed of the white landowners. When you consider quotes from some of the influential American statesmen at the time, you can only wonder how they could be so casual about the subjugation of human beings. Their considerations were only for their own white self-righteousness.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1820, on the subject of slavery, ‘We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other’.

Although acknowledging the clear abhorrence and injustice of slavery, it shows a shocking disregard for the welfare of the black population, who were subjugated.

After the Thirteenth Amendment was introduced, a reconstruction period followed, between 1865 and 1870. With slavery officially ended, this reconstruction period introduced federal laws that provided certain civil rights to African Americans who had been freed from slavery.

At the same time however, the democrats in government forcefully gained power in the southern states through violence and unscrupulous activities. Over time, these southern states became governed entirely by white democrats. These same states then formed a conservative political coalition, known as the Redeemers, which was a white led union pursuing a policy of redemption from the ‘freed men’, as those who were freed from slavery were referred to at the time.

The Redeemers were not happy that the liberal Republicans were gaining votes from the newly freed slaves, and the Republicans wanting to give these voters new political rights. The Redeemers on the other hand wanted to impose their white supremacy on the southern population.

The Redeemers subsequently legislated what were known as the ‘Jim Crow’ laws, introduced to segregate black people from the white population. This essentially resulted in the African American population transitioning from being slaves to being classed as grossly inferior citizens, and the Redeemers ensured that the black population would be further persecuted.

The so called ‘Jim Crow’ Laws were intended, among other things, to restrict voting rights for black people. And they achieved that objective by reducing the number of eligible black voters to a small fraction of the African American population.

Every aspect of black American life was gruellingly compromised by the white leaders of the southern states. What amenities that did exist for the black population in the segregated US south were grossly underfunded. It wasn’t enough for the self-appointed white supremacists to oppress and abuse the black population, they were compelled to deny them any dignity or self-worth in the process.

The ‘Jim Crow’ laws were, apparently, supporting the legal principle of ‘separate but equal’ racial segregation, despite the derogatory name. But of course, however you dress it up, it was yet another obscene travesty meant only to reduce black people to a low-grade and grossly inferior quality of life. Segregation using these so-called laws extended to public schools, public places, public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains.

It wasn't until 1954 that the segregation of public schools was declared unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court, which you may consider a positive move, but it took many years for any change to happen.

The Determination of John Robert Lewis

So this is the backdrop to the world that John Lewis entered back in 1940. And it was the work of such important figures such as Lewis that finally resulted in these laws being overruled. This happened through the enactment of the Civil Rights act of 1964 and Voting Rights act of 1965. There was however some way to go and much tribulation before achieving that significant accolade.

In February 1965 the SNCC, previously led by John Lewis, embarked on a peaceful campaign to register the African American population of Selma in Dallas County Alabama to vote. The percentage of African Americans in Selma that had registered to vote was a tiny fraction of the local population. They were quite deliberately deterred from registering to vote by a needlessly onerous registration process and literacy tests, the sole purpose being to stop black Americans from having any vote at all.

At this same time, the sheriff of Dallas County was a racist man named Jim Clark, a particularly nasty individual with hate coursing through his veins. He responded to the peaceful SNCC campaigners with extreme brutality, even enrolling the Ku Klux Klan to help him in his ‘law enforcement’.

On February 18th 1965 a young black man named Jimmie Lee Jackson, who was participating in a peaceful voting rights march, was shot by an Alabama state patrolman. He died of his wounds eight days later. Jimmie Lee was simply trying to protect his mother and grandfather from being beating by the police.

As a response to this brutality, a protest march from Selma to the state capital Montgomery was held, drawing attention to Jimmie Lee's death, police violence and the violation of African American civil rights.

John Lewis led the march with Martin Luther King and Hosea Williams, with about 600 demonstrators behind them. When they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the marchers were met by the belligerent, abusive and arrogant sheriff’s deputies, who were joined by so called ‘posse men’ , some on horseback. They beat the marchers, hospitalising at least 50, including John Lewis.

What Racism Looks Like Today - Have We Learnt Anything?

The struggle that the civil rights campaigners and the black population had to suffer, and the hatred that they endured throughout their lifetime, would destroy the strongest among us. But they endured it with tremendous dignity.

The events that resulted in the march by the peaceful demonstrators from Selma to Montgomery shows a very disturbing parallel with life for black people in the US today. The murder of George Floyd by white police officer Derek Chauvin shows just how little has been learnt by so many. The more recent harrowing footage of the murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police officers tells us that black Americans are still being persecuted.

It is impossible to fully appreciate just how hard it must have been for a person to endure what John Lewis endured, and to then achieve what he achieved. He found the strength to rise above the hatred and pursue his passion and his beliefs for the good of all.

When John Robert Lewis passed away on July 17th 2020, it was announced that Lewis would lie in state in the United States Capitol Rotunda, with a public viewing and procession through Washington, D.C. He is the first African American lawmaker to be so honoured in the Rotunda.

Not surprisingly, John Lewis’ achievements in his life were many.