Page 10 - Nile Explorer 10 Final-3-FINAL O-WITH NEW ALDO PHO COPY FOR PRINT

Perspectives

Barrack Obama John Robert Lewis (Born, February 21, 1940 –) was an American statesman and
civil rights leader who served in the United States House of Representatives for
Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death July 17, 2020.
Tribute to

Congressman John Robert Lewis

ames wrote to the believers, to take up the unfinished work of the no one can take it away from you.”
J“Consider it pure joy, my brothers last and carry it further than anyone As a boy, John listened through the
and sisters, whenever you face trials might have thought possible. door after bedtime as his father’s
of many kinds, because you know John Lewis - the first of the Freedom friends complained about the Klan.
that the testing of your faith produces Riders, head of the Student Nonviolent One Sunday as a teenager, he heard Dr.
perseverance. Let perseverance finish Coordinating Committee, youngest King preach on the radio. As a college
its work so that you may be mature speaker at the March on Washington, student in Tennessee, he signed up for
and complete, lacking nothing.”
leader of the march from Selma to Jim Lawson’s workshops on the tactic
It is a great honor to be back in Montgomery, Member of Congress of nonviolent civil disobedience. John
Ebenezer Baptist Church, in the representing the people of this state Lewis was getting something inside
pulpit of its greatest pastor, Dr. Martin and this district for 33 years, mentor his head, an idea he couldn’t shake
Luther King, Jr., to pay my respects to young people, including me at that took hold of him - that nonviolent
to perhaps his finest disciple - an the time, until his final day on this resistance and civil disobedience were
American whose faith was tested again Earth - he not only embraced that the means to change laws, but also
and again to produce a man of pure joy responsibility, but he made it his life’s change hearts, and change minds, and
and unbreakable perseverance - John work. change nations, and change the world.
Robert Lewis.
Which isn’t bad for a boy from Troy. So he helped organize the Nashville
To those who have spoken to Presidents John was born into modest means - campaign in 1960. He and other young
Bush and Clinton, Madam Speaker, that means he was poor - in the heart men and women sat at a segregated
Reverend Warnock, Reverend King, of the Jim Crow South to parents lunch counter, well-dressed, straight-
John’s family, friends, his beloved staff, who picked somebody else’s cotton. backed, refusing to let a milkshake
Mayor Bottoms - I’ve come here today Apparently, he didn’t take to farm poured on their heads, or a cigarette
because I, like so many Americans, work - on days when he was supposed extinguished on their backs, or a foot
owe a great debt to John Lewis and his to help his brothers and sisters with aimed at their ribs, refused to let that
forceful vision of freedom. their labor, he’d hide under the porch dent their dignity and their sense of
Now, this country is a constant work and make a break for the school bus purpose. And after a few months, the
in progress. We were born with when it showed up. His mother, Willie Nashville campaign achieved the first
instructions: to form a more perfect Mae Lewis, nurtured that curiosity in successful desegregation of public
union. Explicit in those words is the this shy, serious child. “Once you learn facilities in any major city in the South.
idea that we are imperfect; that what something,” she told her son, “once John got a taste of jail for the first,
gives each new generation purpose is you get something inside your head, second, third…well, several times.

10 | The Nile Explorer 010