What’s in it for me? A heartfelt look at the lessons we can draw from the civil rights movement.
John Lewis was born into a family of sharecroppers in the South during the Jim Crow era, and rose to help shape the civil rights movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From then on he was a leader. He peacefully led activists across the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, Alabama, where they faced hundreds of armed state troopers. He represented Atlanta as a US Congressman for over three decades, until his death in July 2020. At his funeral, Barack Obama eulogized Lewis by saying, “I, like so many Americans, owe a great debt to John Lewis and his forceful vision of freedom.”
In these blinks, that vision of freedom is illuminated with John Lewis’s own words. And with electrifying examples from his extraordinary life, you’ll learn the foundational tenets of all true activists. In a world that seems more divided than ever, it’s a message we need to heed.
In these blinks, you’ll learn
how John Lewis was able to stay true to his commitment to nonviolence through vicious assault;
why Lewis felt no fear facing down those Alabama state troopers on the bridge; and
what inspired a former Klansman to apologize to Lewis 40 years after the freedom rides.
The civil rights movement shows how nothing can stop the power of people determined to make a difference.
On March 7, 1965, John Lewis led a group of peaceful protestors onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He and the other activists planned on marching to the state capitol as a protest against voter discrimination. But as he came to the top of the bridge, hundreds of Alabama state troopers – and deputized citizens – came into view. The troopers and the enraged posse, armed with firearms, tear gas, and nightsticks, had no intention of letting the protestors get through.
Dozens of peaceful demonstrators were brutally beaten, and several were hospitalized. Lewis himself suffered a fractured skull and bore scars for the rest of his life.
It was one of the darkest episodes of the American civil rights movement. But for Lewis, all of the uncertainty and suffering was worth it. Since that awful day, America has made great progress toward bridging its racial divide. And the movement set a precedent for meeting today’s challenges.
The key message here is: The civil rights movement shows how nothing can stop the power of people determined to make a difference.
The civil rights movement was just one step on the long road to America’s spiritual destiny. The work is far from done.
Lewis, who later became a US representative, believed that our modern era has been marked by a unique hostility. At times, for him, the rancor seemed even worse than it was in the 1960s.
Remember when we thought Barack Obama’s 2008 election meant we’d entered a post-racial America? No one believes that anymore. Not in the wake of attempts to ruin the president’s legacy, militarize the police, and weaponize the government to serve as an agent of oppression. In fact, the lowest point of decorum that Lewis ever witnessed was during a State of the Union address when President Obama was called a liar.
But people seem to be waking up. They’re reengaging with their responsibility for the democratic process. They’re remembering, or realizing for the first time, that we are one family, one people. This reawakening reminded Lewis of the civil rights movement – the mighty wind that blew through America and transformed the moral character of the nation.
This history is an important reminder that things may seem dark, like they did when Lewis stood on top of that bridge. But these dark times are really just a starting point for something better.
Faith in your convictions renders your opponents powerless.
Have you ever believed something to be true with every fiber of your being? That’s what John Lewis called faith. Faith in your convictions is one of the most important qualities an activist can possess. Having faith is to be as confident in your dreams as you are that the sky is blue and the water is wet. Nothing could make you doubt that your convictions are true.
Lewis saw his fair share of being cracked on the head with billy clubs, trampled by horses, menaced by dogs, sprayed with fire hoses, clapped in handcuffs, and thrown in prison. But his faith enabled him to stick to his convictions. He never wavered in his belief in nonviolence or in his faith that we are one human family, regardless of race.
The key message here is: Faith in your convictions renders your opponents powerless.
Lewis’s conviction developed during his upbringing amid the violence and fear of the segregated deep South. He plainly saw that the inequality that infected his world was wrong. He also realized that discrimination was a falsehood based on faulty logic. When Lewis and his fellow activists were able to cast off these man-made notions designed to keep them down, they found strength in their faith.
Take Lewis’s friend and colleague Rosa Parks. Many people know she made history by refusing to surrender her seat on a bus to a white person. But this seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, was also an activist; she served as the secretary for her local chapter of the NAACP. Also, she had recently begun studying activist theory on racial integration. Her historic act of nonviolent refusal was intended to test her new understanding – or faith – in the potential for integration. She was declaring that she had a power that no one and nothing, not even arrest or imprisonment, could take away.
Actually, as Lewis and his colleagues faced increased violence and hatred, their faith only grew stronger. Each blow was more proof that our racially misguided society couldn’t douse the fire for freedom they all felt. By the time Lewis stood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, facing down hundreds of sneering state troopers armed to the teeth, he had no fear of pain or death. No one could injure him. His faith had taken away all their power.
The struggle for voting rights in Selma demonstrates the power of patience.
“Patience is a virtue.” You’ve heard the expression, right? Well, it’s especially true in activism.
This might strike you as counterintuitive. After all, in activist communities a lot of emphasis is put on decisive, forceful action, like protests. Waiting is often perceived as a product of defeatist, wishful thinking – or even weakness.
But patience has the potential to be a powerful catalyst for change. This principle was perfectly exemplified by the struggle for voting equality during the civil rights movement. This struggle ultimately resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The key message here is: The struggle for voting rights in Selma demonstrates the power of patience.
The story begins back in 1870, when the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution gave African Americans the right to vote – in theory, at least. In practice, it was a different story.
Up until the 1960s, the Alabama state government and the Ku Klux Klan did everything they could to stop African Americans from exercising their rights. One of the measures they instated was a so-called grandfather clause. This allowed everyone whose grandfather had had the right to vote to continue doing so unimpeded. Well, obviously, the grandfathers of almost all African Americans in Alabama had been enslaved, meaning their grandchildren had to register anew.
In order to register, you had to pass a literacy test. But the test wasn’t designed to measure reading skills. Instead, it was designed with incredibly difficult questions about arcane passages from the state Constitution. According to Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, the test was so difficult that a colleague of his could only answer one question correctly.
On top of all that, as Black people started turning up in droves to register during the civil rights movement, the registrar’s office simply closed to prevent it from happening.
Lewis and his activist colleagues were left with only one option: wait in line anyway. And people peacefully waited in line at the Selma registrar’s office for two years. Sometimes they were beaten, verbally abused, and taken to jail. But nevertheless, they came back every day and waited. Their patient insistence on exercising their rights made the police’s violence and vitriol look ridiculous.
The peaceful waiting in Selma had a colossal impact. It broke down the doors of Southern resistance and led directly to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – the most effective piece of legislation that Congress had passed in 50 years.
Through careful study, activists can understand their truth – and how to fight for it.
The civil rights movement was a struggle for African Americans’ legal rights. But it was also more than that. It was a commitment to prove a powerful truth: that human equality is an inalienable right.
This right wasn’t immediately accessible to John Lewis. He grew up in the cotton fields of Alabama, where racism was a way of life. So he devoted himself to learning why his world was the way it was. He tore through every newspaper he could find, as well as books on history, political theory, and philosophy.
The accomplishments of the civil rights movement were only possible because activists like Lewis spent years devoted to rigorous study, planning, and preparation. The goal of all this? Understanding how the world should be – and developing a plan to get there.
The key message here is: Through careful study, activists can understand their truth – and how to fight for it.
It’s no accident that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to lead the civil rights movement. He’d been preparing for it his whole life.
Sure, he was born with gifts. But he also consciously built his persona. And he studied the problems that faced his people. Racism didn’t aggravate him; it intrigued him. He was determined to understand how to help a people embittered by hate. To answer this question, he studied all the major theologians and philosophers, earning a PhD in the process. So when the people of Montgomery, Alabama, called on him to serve as the leader of their boycott, he was ready.
Academic study isn’t the only way to arrive at the truth. You can get there just by paying attention to the world around you. But today, some leaders are disconnected from the lives of most Americans. They ignore rising poverty, unemployment, food insecurity, homelessness, and limited access to health care. This blindness derives from a belief that different races experience the world differently.
But for Lewis, the truth was that we are all interrelated. What’s more, once we accept the truth, it can sometimes be difficult to return to our old, comfortable lifestyle. Many of us aren’t prepared to make that sacrifice – politicians and citizens alike. But there are role models to whose example we can all aspire. For Lewis, three truth-seeking figures of the 1960s – John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. – reminded him never to give up in his own pursuit of equality.
When you act, make sure your actions manifest the humanity of your cause.
Studying enough to fully own your truth is an achievement in itself. But that’s not enough to have a positive impact on the world. For that you need to act. Specifically, you need to organize actions around inclusion and inspiration, rather than exclusion and alienation.
For Dr. King, faith had no meaning unless it could help resolve his community’s problems. He is still renowned for being a great orator. But his more important accomplishment was that he transcended the pulpit to deliver his message through action. For example, Dr. King was given a cash award when he became the youngest-ever recipient of a Nobel Prize. He used it for the benefit of others within the cause. His generosity exemplifies how to use action to demonstrate the dignity of your truth.
The key message here is: When you act, make sure your actions manifest the humanity of your cause.
As the preeminent member of the civil rights movement, Dr. King faced a great deal of anger and hatred – as did his family. On top of the death threats and hate mail, he, his wife, and their four young children were the targets of verbal and physical abuse, bomb attacks, and even assassination attempts.
When King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he was awarded over $50,000 – nearly half a million dollars in today’s money. He could have bought his way out of the perilous South, giving his family an increased measure of safety and security. Instead, he donated every cent to the civil rights cause.
With his selfless donation, King underscored the movement's underlying message of love and inclusion for all. It was partly because of this donation that the movement was able to accomplish everything it did. Today, the movement is an example of activism’s potential. In just 12 years, civil rights activists changed centuries of unfair conditions for African Americans in the most powerful country on earth.
An example of the movement’s success is when Lewis spoke to children about the “bad old days” of the segregated South. The children frequently cried in horror when he told them of the humiliations he and his family endured. The fact that they were upset and confused by his descriptions of legalized segregation represented huge progress.
The only reason unjust systems exist is because people give their tacit consent. As soon as people act to withdraw their consent, these systems begin to collapse.
Nonviolent resistance in the face of rage is the ultimate weapon of love.
The twentieth century was the most violent century in contemporary history. From 1900 to 2000, nearly 33 million soldiers and 54 million civilians were killed in war. What’s more, nearly 100 million people died as a result of political oppression. And yet we continue to resort to violence to solve conflicts. What does this say about human progress? Why have we taught ourselves to fly to the moon, but not to get along with each other?
John Lewis believed that peace and love are more powerful than any destructive weapon. During the civil rights movement, John Lewis and his colleagues were warriors for peace. Their weapons were radical love – and the willingness to sacrifice for the betterment of society. Ultimately these weapons brought a nation to its knees.
The key message here is: Nonviolent resistance in the face of rage is the ultimate weapon of love.
John Lewis was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders. Their goal was simple but radical: ride a bus together, as a mix of races, from Washington, DC, to New Orleans. In 1961, buses in the South were still racially segregated, despite Supreme Court decisions outlawing the practice. And plenty of white Southerners were ready to take up arms to maintain racial segregation.
During their journey, the activists were violently assaulted by mobs throughout the South. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, John Lewis was beaten to the floor, then viciously kicked while he was down.
But not once did he raise a hand to his attackers – not even in self-defense. Furthermore, once the police stopped the attack, he declined to press charges.
By peacefully withstanding the rage of a degrading system, Lewis and the other Freedom Riders were able to express love. Through this love, they released Black people from the illusion that they were inferior. And they freed white Southerners from the inherent burden of hate.
In fact, 40 years after the assault in Rock Hill, John Lewis got an unexpected call. It was Elwin Wilson, a former Klansman and one of his attackers on that day. He was calling to apologize. But that apology may not have happened if Lewis had pressed charges or raised his hand in defense 40 years before. Rather, that aggression would have made it much more difficult for Wilson to realize his guilt and make the courageous choice to admit his error.
This is the most powerful testament Lewis knew for the power of love over violent hate.
Letting your own light shine bright is a powerful tool for radical activism.
You might not be surprised to learn that struggle is, well, incredibly difficult. The story of John Lewis’s life is enough to prove that – he was verbally abused, violently assaulted, and arrested 40 times. You might wonder whether you’d be willing to make a similar sacrifice on behalf of humankind. Is it worth the risk for a reward that you might not even live to see? But that’s a question everyone must ask, and answer, for themselves.
John Lewis believed that we all have a spark of the divine within us – our very own light. This spark takes different forms for each of us since we all have different gifts. Lewis used his life as a mission to encourage his fellow humans to fan their own sparks into flames. Our purpose in life, he believed, was to fully express our gifts so that others might see their own potential to shine.
The key message here is: Letting your own light shine bright is a powerful tool for radical activism.
But inspiring people to let their own light shine didn’t start with John Lewis. He believed that the ultimate goal of America’s founders was similar – that is, to ease, not impede, each citizen’s path to pursuing their dreams.
The civil rights movement advanced this narrative in a crucial way. The movement’s struggle was to correct the wrongheaded idea that some people have more light than others – and are therefore more deserving than others. They made some important strides, but the battle hasn’t yet been won. Today’s activists from the Occupy Movement, the Arab Spring, and Black Lives Matter, are fighting the same battles that were fought during the civil rights movement.
Everyone in these movements has shouldered the responsibility to use their own light to dispel the forces of division and destruction. You, too, have the choice.
John Lewis knew that with inaction, the darkness only grows stronger. That’s why he devoted his life to the struggle. His – and all of our – actions protect the power of light on this planet. Positive actions only create room for more light.
So what will your choice be?
Final summary
Throughout his life of activism, towering civil rights figure John Lewis isolated the qualities needed to bring about lasting change. Just as John Lewis and his fellow activists took inspiration from past struggles, activists today can use the civil rights movement as a template to make a positive impact on the world around them.