Author: Deja Bonney
The late John Lewis embodied the fight for freedom and equality among African Americans. He sadly passed late last month at age 80 due to stage four pancreatic cancer, and even at this painful time in his life, he never stopped his fight for equality. Not only was he in congress since 1987, but he was a Freedom Rider and worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to abolish the Jim Crow Laws. Along with a few brave others, he rode the bus into the segregated southern part of the United States; they wanted to pressure the United States Supreme Court to rule that segregated public buses are unconstitutional, particularly in the famous cases Morgan v. Virginia and Boynton v. Virginia. During the campaign for abolishing Jim Crow laws, John Lewis had a rough time. After a peaceful protest at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the police administered severe blows to his body and fractured his skull. This was a turning point for both him and the world because the images of his beating in Selma, Alabama shocked the nation, which led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
One of John Lewis’s famous quotes and one we should always remember, especially during this time, is “Get into good trouble.” This means that we have to make noise in order to be heard and we have to make a louder noise in order to induce change. To honor his humanitarian acts, we should all consider getting into some good trouble to continue his work for freedom and equality. Our generation has already done some amazing work by using our social media platforms to post uncomfortable information and videos that need to be talked about no matter the opinions of it being “inappropriate” or “unacceptable” as well as host and go to protests. We are never too young to be able to spread awareness and to make a change.
What have you done during this time to help make a change? After reading, What are you going to do moving forward?