“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Mr. Bush gave a short, warm speech in which he praised Mr. Lewis’s Christian faith and recalled working with him to establish the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington. And now, he notes, it's time for Americans to find theirs. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. She prayed, she said, for unity and justice, and for a new younger generation of activists: “the John Lewises of the world,” she said, who might “go forth and make a difference.”. Lewis died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. "You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society." ", After hearing the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio, Lewis found his calling. On Thursday, The New York Times, at Mr. Lewis’s request, published an essay he wrote that praised the Black Lives Matter movement and urged continued participation in the democratic process. "Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble," he writes, calling especially for people to vote, take part in the democratic process, and "study and learn the lessons of history." The need to form coalitions with converts to the civil rights cause, including white people, was a cornerstone of Mr. Lewis’s belief system, and it clashed in the mid-1960s with a more radical branch of the movement that was skeptical of nonviolence as an effective strategy and prioritized Black political and economic power over integration. Get The Morning 8: The eight stories you need to know, bright and early.

Stokely Carmichael, a proponent of this worldview who would later change his name to Kwame Ture, was chosen to replace Mr. Lewis in 1966 as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Mourners outside Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. At the same time, however, the funeral underscored how Mr. Lewis believed that his decades-long civil rights fight could be waged in a spirit of comity — and with a belief that the American project was not fatally flawed, but perfectible in the hands of a citizenry willing to go to the polls and engage in nonviolent protest. Mr. Lewis, she said, seemed like a man who was going places, unlike “the bums” who had approached Lillian in the past. In his many years in public life, Mr. Lewis played crucial roles as a critic who stood — often literally — against government power, but also as one who worked within the system as a 33-year member of Congress. In an essay written two days before his death and published by the New York Times on Thursday, civil rights icon John Lewis offered a parting message of hope amid ongoing protests for racial equality. Mr. Clinton called Mr. Lewis “a man I loved for a long time” and someone who was “on a mission that was bigger than personal ambition.”, He also said that Mr. Lewis had learned a lesson after he was asked by other civil rights leaders to tone down a fiery speech that he had written for the March on Washington in August 1963.

Now it is your turn to let freedom ring."

You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Lewis is being laid to rest on Thursday after a funeral service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. In his eulogy, Mr. Obama, among other things, called on Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act named for Mr. Lewis, for the end of gerrymandering and for the establishment of a national holiday on Election Day to make it easier for working people to get to the polls. (Ben Arnon/Magnolia Pictures via AP), Biden 264, Trump 214. Mr. Obama praised Mr. Lewis in his eulogy as an “American whose faith was tested again and again to produce a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance.”. “But we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators.”, And while insuperable poll tests for Black people may be a thing of the past, Mr. Obama said, “Even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darnedest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with restrictive ID laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision.”. Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, who is running as a Democrat for a Senate seat. John Lewis spent his whole life fighting for civil rights — and he wanted to make sure the cause lived on after his death. Trump Still Doesn't, 'A Terrifying Time to Be Alive': Reactions to the First Debate, Missing 8 Days, Teen Found in Closet at Friend's Home, One State's New Car-Repair Law Could Affect Everyone, Trump Adviser Goes Viral With Call for African Angels. Former President Barack Obama is expected to deliver a eulogy. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/podcasts/the-daily/john-lewis.html The political tone of the ceremony came as little surprise.

Representative John Lewis wrote this essay shortly before his death, to be published on the day of his funeral. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division,” Lewis said in the essay, which was published ahead of his funeral in Atlanta. The ceremony, which began with a tolling of a bell for each of his 80 years, also featured warm remembrances from family and staff members. Some took their seats as an organist played “We Shall Overcome,” a protest anthem sung by Mr. Lewis countless times during his nonviolent confrontations with segregationist forces in the South who beat and injured him on several occasions. Mr. Lewis exhibited, he said, “that most American of ideas — the idea that any of us ordinary people, without rank or wealth or title or fame, can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation and come together and challenge the status quo and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals.”, For that, he said, Mr. Lewis would come to be viewed as “a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.”. Barack Obama is expected to deliver a eulogy for John Lewis at the civil rights icon's funeral on Thursday, but one other big name has some final words as well: John Lewis himself. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me,” he wrote. He also took aim at the forces that he said were working against the equality for Black Americans and other oppressed people that Mr. Lewis had spent a lifetime championing. He went on to urge demonstrators to continue making noise, and warned that the democratic process is not guaranteed. In an essay written two days before his death and, Lewis died on July 17 at age 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Rep. John Lewis departed the Capitol in Washington in 2017. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. In an essay he sent to the New York Times two days before he died, with the arrangement to publish it on the day of his funeral, Lewis tells the American people that even though he's gone, he hopes they'll take up the mantle to fight for a better nation. In an essay written two days before his death and published by the New York Times on Thursday, civil rights icon John Lewis offered a parting message of hope amid ongoing protests for …

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