He Must Be Emulated

A few thoughts to pass along about John Lewis (from Twitter, of course).

Waking up devastated by the news of John Lewis’s passing
He was the greatest human being I’ve ever met
There would be no Voting Rights Act without John Lewis
He literally put his life on the line to make America a democracy
We must all continue his fight


Ari Berman (author of Give Us the Ballot, which I've written about here and here)

The "good trouble" made by John Lewis and the civil rights movement was extremely unpopular in its time:


Waleed Shahid

Freedom Riders arrested on the same day in 1961 and they died on the same day in 2020. Rev C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis:


Yashar Ali

John Lewis should not only be mourned. He should not only be remembered. He must be emulated.
Maya Wiley

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While looking for past mentions of the Freedom Riders on my blog, I found this post from 2010, which quoted a Leonard Pitts column, and I recommend it again today. Ten years have gone by since he wrote it, ten more years of forgetting, purposeful amnesia, and forced claims on the good while bringing back the bad.