Honoring The Legacy Of Civil Rights Champion John Lewis
Statement Of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer
July 17, 2024 marks the fourth anniversary of the passing of civil rights champion and national icon Representative John Lewis.
In nearly 100 communities across the nation, there will be commemorations of his life and candlelight vigils, as well as demands for Congress to pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, the Native American Voting Rights Act, and the Freedom To Vote Act.
These voting rights bills would protect a foundational principle of our democracy – that every eligible citizen has the right to vote and to have their vote counted properly. They honor the extraordinary legacy of John Lewis who dedicated his life to protecting democracy, protecting the right to vote, and fighting for the civil rights of all.
Lewis long led the battle in Congress to protect and strengthen the right of every American to vote. He introduced legislation in Congress after Congress to accomplish this goal.
He would always tell us, “Never give up. Never give in.”
In 2020, Lewis returned to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he had been brutally beaten in a civil rights march in 1965. While standing on the bridge where more than 50 years earlier he was almost killed for his activism, he instructed us: “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America.”
The continuing assault on the voting rights of people of color, language minorities, women, the LGBTQIA community, young voters, and voters with disabilities is real and unrelenting. It requires us to heed Lewis’s words – we must never give up, never give in.
The Voting Rights Act, first enacted in 1965 and reenacted over the years, served for decades to make the right to vote a reality in states and communities where this right had been denied or undermined. Beginning in 2013, Supreme Court decisions have reopened the door to a wave of voter discrimination and suppression not seen since the days of Jim Crow.
Lewis’s legacy inspires us to never lose focus, to never lose hope.
It took decades of dedicated citizen action to achieve passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Civil rights activists, including John Lewis, put their lives on the line. Some lost their lives. But the fight never wavered.
We know in this challenging and divisive era, the work to protect voting rights will take time. No action is expected in this Congress with conservative Republicans in the majority in the House. But the difficult building-block work will continue.
John Lewis once said, “Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part.”
The work we do today, tomorrow, and into the future will set the stage to be ready to strike when the next opportunity arises to enact historic voting rights legislation. That opportunity will come.
