‘What A Reward John Lewis Was’: Obama Eulogizes His Pal And Hero : NPR

‘What A Reward John Lewis Was’: Obama Eulogizes His Pal And Hero : NPR

Former President Barack Obama provides the eulogy on the funeral service for Rep. John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Lewis, a civil rights icon and fierce advocate of voting rights for African People, died on July 17 on the age of 80.

Alyssa Pointer/Pool / Getty Photographs

cover caption

toggle caption

Alyssa Pointer/Pool / Getty Photographs

Former President Barack Obama provides the eulogy on the funeral service for Rep. John Lewis at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. Lewis, a civil rights icon and fierce advocate of voting rights for African People, died on July 17 on the age of 80.

Alyssa Pointer/Pool / Getty Photographs

“I used to be proud that John Lewis was a pal of mine,” former President Barack Obama mentioned on Thursday, delivering an emotional eulogy for the civil rights chief who was an inspiration for America’s first Black president.

Lewis was a mentor and a hero to him, Obama mentioned in a 40-minute speech. Talking from the previous pulpit of Dr. Martin Luther King at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Obama praised the late Congress member’s dedication to protest and advocacy that drove him onto the Edmund Pettus Bridge and into a long time of public service.

“He believed that in all of us, there exists the capability for excellent braveness,” Obama mentioned, “that in all of us there’s a longing to do what’s proper, that in all of us there’s a willingness to like all individuals, and to increase to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect.”

The 2 first met when Obama was in regulation college. From there, they’d encounters at landmark occasions in Obama’s life, from his arrival within the U.S. Senate to his presidential inauguration.

“I informed him, I am right here due to you,” Obama mentioned of speaking to Lewis as a congressional colleague.

“He was an excellent and sort and mild man,” Obama mentioned, “and he believed in us, even after we do not consider in ourselves.”

YouTube

Beneath, the complete transcript of Obama’s eulogy for Lewis:

Remarks of President Barack Obama
Eulogy for John Lewis
Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia
July 30, 2020
As Delivered

James wrote to the believers, “Take into account it pure pleasure, my brothers and sisters, everytime you face trials of many varieties, as a result of you realize that the testing of your religion produces perseverance. Let perseverance end its work so that you could be be mature and full, missing nothing.”

It’s a nice honor to be again in Ebenezer Baptist Church, within the pulpit of its biggest pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to pay my respects to maybe his most interesting disciple – an American whose religion was examined time and again to supply a person of pure pleasure and unbreakable perseverance – John Robert Lewis.

To those that have spoken to Presidents Bush and Clinton, Madam Speaker, Reverend Warnock, Reverend King, John’s household, associates, his beloved employees, Mayor Bottoms – I’ve come right here in the present day as a result of I, like so many People, owe an excellent debt to John Lewis and his forceful imaginative and prescient of freedom.

Now, this nation is a continuing work in progress. We had been born with directions: to kind a extra excellent union. Express in these phrases is the concept we’re imperfect; that what provides every new era objective is to take up the unfinished work of the final and carry it additional than anybody may need thought potential.

John Lewis – the primary of the Freedom Riders, head of the Pupil Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, youngest speaker on the March on Washington, chief of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the individuals of this state and this district for 33 years, mentor to younger individuals, together with me on the time, till his remaining day on this Earth – he not solely embraced that accountability, however he made it his life’s work.

Which is not unhealthy for a boy from Troy. John was born into modest means – meaning he was poor – within the coronary heart of the Jim Crow South to oldsters who picked any person else’s cotton. Apparently, he did not take to farm work – on days when he was supposed to assist his brothers and sisters with their labor, he’d cover beneath the porch and make a break for the college bus when it confirmed up. His mom, Willie Mae Lewis, nurtured that curiosity on this shy, critical youngster. “When you study one thing,” she informed her son, “when you get one thing inside your head, nobody can take it away from you.”

As a boy, John listened by the door after bedtime as his father’s associates complained concerning the Klan. One Sunday as a teen, he heard Dr. King preach on the radio. As a school scholar in Tennessee, he signed up for Jim Lawson’s workshops on the tactic of nonviolent civil disobedience. John Lewis was getting one thing inside his head, an concept he could not shake that took maintain of him – that nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience had been the means to alter legal guidelines, but additionally change hearts, and alter minds, and alter nations, and alter the world.

So he helped set up the Nashville marketing campaign in 1960. He and different younger women and men sat at a segregated lunch counter, well-dressed, straight-backed, refusing to let a milkshake poured on their heads, or a cigarette extinguished on their backs, or a foot aimed toward their ribs, refused to let that dent their dignity and their sense of objective. And after a number of months, the Nashville marketing campaign achieved the primary profitable desegregation of public services in any main metropolis within the South.

John obtained a style of jail for the primary, second, third … nicely, a number of occasions. However he additionally obtained a style of victory. And it consumed him with righteous objective. And he took the battle deeper into the South.

That very same 12 months, simply weeks after the Supreme Courtroom dominated that segregation of interstate bus services was unconstitutional, John and Bernard Lafayette purchased two tickets, climbed aboard a Greyhound, sat up entrance, and refused to maneuver. This was months earlier than the primary official Freedom Rides. He was doing a check. The journey was unsanctioned. Few knew what they had been as much as. And at each cease, by the evening, apparently the offended driver stormed out of the bus and into the bus station. And John and Bernard had no concept what he would possibly come again with or who he would possibly come again with. No one was there to guard them. There have been no digital camera crews to report occasions. You understand, generally, we examine this and form of take it as a right. Or not less than we act as if it was inevitable. Think about the braveness of two individuals Malia’s age, youthful than my oldest daughter, on their very own, to problem a complete infrastructure of oppression.

John was solely twenty years outdated. However he pushed all twenty of these years to the middle of the desk, betting every little thing, all of it, that his instance may problem centuries of conference, and generations of brutal violence, and numerous every day indignities suffered by African People.

Like John the Baptist making ready the best way, like these Previous Testomony prophets talking reality to kings, John Lewis didn’t hesitate – he stored on getting on board buses and sitting at lunch counters, obtained his mugshot taken time and again, marched time and again on a mission to alter America.

Spoke to 1 / 4 million individuals on the March on Washington when he was simply 23.

Helped set up the Freedom Summer time in Mississippi when he was simply 24.

On the ripe outdated age of 25, John was requested to steer the march from Selma to Montgomery. He was warned that Governor Wallace had ordered troopers to make use of violence. However he and Hosea Williams and others led them throughout that bridge anyway. And we have all seen the movie and the footage and the images, and President Clinton talked about the ditch coat, the knapsack, the e-book to learn, the apple to eat, the toothbrush – apparently jails weren’t huge on such creature comforts. And also you take a look at these footage and John seems to be so younger and he is small in stature. Trying each bit that shy, critical youngster that his mom had raised and but, he is stuffed with objective. God’s put perserverence in him.

And we all know what occurred to the marchers that day. Their bones had been cracked by billy golf equipment, their eyes and lungs choked with tear fuel. As they knelt to wish, which made their heads even simpler targets, and John was struck within the cranium. And he thought he was going to die, surrounded by the sight of younger People gagging, and bleeding, and trampled, victims in their very own nation of state-sponsored violence.

And the factor is, I think about initially that day, the troopers thought that they’d gained the battle. You possibly can think about the conversations they’d afterwards. You possibly can think about them saying, “yeah, we confirmed them.” They figured they’d turned the protesters again over the bridge; that they’d stored, that they’d preserved a system that denied the fundamental humanity of their fellow residents. Besides this time, there have been some cameras there. This time, the world noticed what occurred, bore witness to Black People who had been asking for nothing greater than to be handled like different People. Who weren’t asking for particular remedy, simply the equal remedy promised to them a century earlier than, and virtually one other century earlier than that.

When John awakened, and checked himself out of the hospital, he would make sure that the world noticed a motion that was, within the phrases of Scripture, “arduous pressed on each aspect, however not crushed; perplexed however not in despair; persecuted, however not deserted; struck down, however not destroyed.” They returned to Brown Chapel, a battered prophet, bandages round his head, and he mentioned extra marchers will come now. And the individuals got here. And the troopers parted. And the marchers reached Montgomery. And their phrases reached the White Home – and Lyndon Johnson, son of the South, mentioned “We will overcome,” and the Voting Rights Act was signed into regulation.

The lifetime of John Lewis was, in so some ways, distinctive. It vindicated the religion in our founding, redeemed that religion; that the majority American of concepts; that concept that any of us unusual individuals with out rank or wealth or title or fame can by some means level out the imperfections of this nation, and are available collectively, and problem the established order, and determine that it’s in our energy to remake this nation that we love till it extra intently aligns with our highest beliefs. What a radical ideally suited. What a revolutionary notion. This concept that any of us, unusual individuals, a younger child from Troy can stand as much as the powers and principalities and say no this is not proper, this is not true, this is not simply. We are able to do higher. On the battlefield of justice, People like John, People just like the Reverends Lowery and C.T. Vivian, two different patriots that we misplaced this 12 months, liberated all of us that many People got here to take as a right.

America was constructed by individuals like them. America was constructed by John Lewises. He as a lot as anybody in our historical past introduced this nation a bit bit nearer to our highest beliefs. And sometime, after we do end that lengthy journey towards freedom; after we do kind a extra excellent union – whether or not it is years from now, or a long time, or even when it takes one other two centuries – John Lewis might be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, higher America.

And but, as distinctive as John was, this is the factor: John by no means believed that what he did was greater than any citizen of this nation can do. I discussed within the assertion the day John handed, the factor about John was simply how light and humble he was. And regardless of this storied, exceptional profession, he handled everybody with kindness and respect as a result of it was innate to him – this concept that any of us can do what he did if we’re prepared to persevere.

He believed that in all of us, there exists the capability for excellent braveness, that in all of us there’s a longing to do what’s proper, that in all of us there’s a willingness to like all individuals, and to increase to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. So many people lose that sense. It is taught out of us. We begin feeling as if, actually, that we will not afford to increase kindness or decency to different individuals. That we’re higher off if we’re above different individuals and searching down on them, and so usually that is inspired in our tradition. However John at all times noticed the very best in us. And he by no means gave up, and by no means stopped talking out as a result of he noticed the very best in us. He believed in us even after we did not consider in ourselves. As a Congressman, he did not relaxation; he stored getting himself arrested. As an outdated man, he did not sit out any struggle; he sat in, all evening lengthy, on the ground of the US Capitol. I do know his employees was confused.

However the testing of his religion produced perseverance. He knew that the march isn’t but over, that the race isn’t but gained, that we now have not but reached that blessed vacation spot the place we’re judged by the content material of our character. He knew from his personal life that progress is fragile; that we now have to be vigilant towards the darker currents of this nation’s historical past, of our personal historical past, with their whirlpools of violence and hatred and despair that may at all times rise once more.

Bull Connor could also be gone. However in the present day we witness with our personal eyes law enforcement officials kneeling on the necks of Black People. George Wallace could also be gone. However we will witness our federal authorities sending brokers to make use of tear fuel and batons towards peaceable demonstrators. We might now not should guess the variety of jellybeans in a jar so as to forged a poll. However whilst we sit right here, there are these in energy are doing their darnedest to discourage individuals from voting – by closing polling areas, and focusing on minorities and college students with restrictive ID legal guidelines, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service within the runup to an election that’s going to be depending on mailed-in ballots so individuals do not get sick.

Now, I do know this can be a celebration of John’s life. There are some who would possibly say we should not dwell on such issues. However that is why I am speaking about it. John Lewis devoted his time on this Earth preventing the very assaults on democracy and what’s greatest in America that we’re seeing flow into proper now.

He knew that each single one in all us has a God-given energy. And that the destiny of this democracy will depend on how we use it; that democracy is not computerized, it must be nurtured, it must be tended to, we now have to work at it, it is arduous. And so he knew it will depend on whether or not we summon a measure, only a measure, of John’s ethical braveness to query what’s proper and what’s incorrect and name issues as they’re. He mentioned that so long as he had breath in his physique, he would do every little thing he may to protect this democracy. That so long as we now have breath in our our bodies, we now have to proceed his trigger. If we wish our kids to develop up in a democracy – not simply with elections, however a real democracy, a consultant democracy, a big-hearted, tolerant, vibrant, inclusive America of perpetual self-creation – then we’re going to should be extra like John. We do not have to do all of the issues he needed to do as a result of he did them for us. However we now have obtained to do one thing. Because the Lord instructed Paul, “Don’t be afraid, go on talking; don’t be silent, for I’m with you, and nobody will assault you to hurt you, for I’ve many on this metropolis who’re my individuals.” Simply everyone’s simply obtained to return out and vote. We have all these individuals within the metropolis however we will not do nothing.

Like John, we now have obtained to maintain entering into that good hassle. He knew that nonviolent protest is patriotic; a solution to increase public consciousness, put a highlight on injustice, and make the powers that be uncomfortable.

Like John, we do not have to decide on between protest and politics, it isn’t an either-or state of affairs, it’s a both-and state of affairs. We now have to have interaction in protests the place that’s efficient however we additionally should translate our ardour and our causes into legal guidelines and institutional practices. That is why John ran for Congress thirty-four years in the past.

Like John, we now have obtained to struggle even tougher for essentially the most highly effective instrument we now have, which is the fitting to vote. The Voting Rights Act is without doubt one of the crowning achievements of our democracy. It is why John crossed that bridge. It is why he spilled his blood. And by the best way, it was the results of Democratic and Republican efforts. President Bush, who spoke right here earlier, and his father, each signed its renewal once they had been in workplace. President Clinton did not should as a result of it was the regulation when he arrived so as a substitute he made a regulation that made it simpler for individuals to register to vote.

However as soon as the Supreme Courtroom weakened the Voting Rights Act, some state legislatures unleashed a flood of legal guidelines designed particularly to make voting tougher, particularly, by the best way, state legislatures the place there’s lots of minority turnout and inhabitants progress. That is not essentially a thriller or an accident. It was an assault on what John fought for. It was an assault on our democratic freedoms. And we should always deal with it as such.

If politicians need to honor John, and I am so grateful for the legacy of labor of all of the Congressional leaders who’re right here, however there’s a greater manner than a press release calling him a hero. You need to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the regulation that he was prepared to die for. And by the best way, naming it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, that could be a high-quality tribute. However John would not need us to cease there, attempting to get again to the place we already had been. As soon as we cross the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should always maintain marching to make it even higher.

By ensuring each American is routinely registered to vote, together with former inmates who’ve earned their second probability.

By including polling locations, and increasing early voting, and making Election Day a nationwide vacation, so in case you are somebody who’s working in a manufacturing facility, or you’re a single mother who has obtained to go to her job and would not get day off, you possibly can nonetheless forged your poll.

By guaranteeing that each American citizen has equal illustration in our authorities, together with the Americans who dwell in Washington, D.C. and in Puerto Rico. They’re People.

By ending a number of the partisan gerrymandering– so that every one voters have the facility to decide on their politicians, not the opposite manner round.

And if all this takes eliminating the filibuster – one other Jim Crow relic – so as to safe the God-given rights of each American, then that is what we should always do.

And but, even when we do all this – even when each bogus voter suppression regulation was struck off the books in the present day – we now have obtained to be sincere with ourselves that too many people select to not train the franchise; that too a lot of our residents consider their vote will not make a distinction, or they purchase into the cynicism that, by the best way, is the central technique of voter suppression, to make you discouraged, to cease believing in your individual energy.

So we’re additionally going to have to recollect what John mentioned: “In case you do not do every little thing you possibly can to alter issues, then they may stay the identical. You solely cross this fashion as soon as. You need to give all of it you have got.” So long as younger persons are protesting within the streets, hoping actual change takes maintain, I am hopeful however we can not casually abandon them on the poll field. Not when few elections have been as pressing, on so many ranges, as this one. We can not deal with voting as an errand to run if we now have a while. We now have to deal with it as crucial motion we will tackle behalf of democracy.

Like John, we now have to present all of it we now have.

I used to be proud that John Lewis was a pal of mine. I met him once I was in regulation college. He got here to talk and I went up and I mentioned, “Mr. Lewis, you might be one in all my heroes. What impressed me greater than something as a younger man was to see what you and Reverend Lawson and Bob Moses and Diane Nash and others did.” And he obtained that form of – aw shucks, thanks very a lot.

The subsequent time I noticed him, I had been elected to the US Senate. And I informed him, “John, I’m right here due to you.” On Inauguration Day in 2008, 2009, he was one of many first those that I greeted and hugged on that stand. I informed him, “That is your day too.”

He was an excellent and sort and mild man. And he believed in us – even after we do not consider in ourselves. It is becoming that the final time John and I shared a public discussion board was on Zoom. I’m fairly positive that neither he nor I arrange the Zoom name as a result of we did not know find out how to work it. It was a digital city corridor with a gathering of younger activists who had been serving to to steer this summer season’s demonstrations within the wake of George Floyd’s loss of life. And afterwards, I spoke to John privately, and he couldn’t have been prouder to see this new era of activists standing up for freedom and equality; a brand new era that was intent on voting and defending the fitting to vote; in some circumstances, a brand new era operating for political workplace.

I informed him, all these younger individuals, John – of each race and each faith, from each background and gender and sexual orientation – John, these are your youngsters. They discovered out of your instance, even when they did not at all times understand it. That they had understood, by him, what American citizenship requires, even when they’d solely heard about his braveness by the historical past books.

“By the hundreds, faceless, nameless, relentless younger individuals, black and white…have taken our complete nation again to these nice wells of democracy which had been dug deep by the founding fathers within the formulation of the Structure and the Declaration of Independence.”

Dr. King mentioned that within the 1960s. And it got here true once more this summer season.

We see it exterior our home windows, in huge cities and rural cities, in women and men, younger and outdated, straight People and LGBTQ People, Blacks who lengthy for equal remedy and whites who can now not settle for freedom for themselves whereas witnessing the subjugation of their fellow People. We see it in everyone doing the arduous work of overcoming complacency, of overcoming our personal fears and our personal prejudices, our personal hatreds. You see it in individuals attempting to be higher, more true variations of ourselves.

And that is what John Lewis teaches us. That is the place actual braveness comes from. Not from turning on one another, however by turning in direction of each other. Not by sowing hatred and division, however by spreading love and reality. Not by avoiding our tasks to create a greater America and a greater world, however by embracing these tasks with with pleasure and perseverance and discovering that in our beloved group, we don’t stroll alone.

What a present John Lewis was. We’re all so fortunate to have had him stroll with us for some time, and present us the best way.

God bless you all. God bless America. God bless this light soul who pulled it nearer to its promise.

The post ‘What A Reward John Lewis Was’: Obama Eulogizes His Pal And Hero : NPR appeared first on Chop News.

from Chop News https://ift.tt/30bqQvs

via Blogger https://ift.tt/30bsBJ4
July 31, 2020 at 05:50AM