As Congressman John R. Lewis is mourned on four formal occasions these days, it is this image for which I have been waiting. No one public figure deserves such commemoration as John Lewis, who lived his entire life as a public servant fighting for civil rights and social equity. When I first met him and the Freedom Singers at the University of Iowa in the 1960s, they had come to raise money and help us form a local chapter of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. He told the story of being beaten in a stadium and outside a bus station and of a host of other indignities he and others already suffered. Lewis had not at that point tried to march to Tuscaloosa across the Pettus Bridge in Alabama. When he did so in 1965, he was beaten, suffering a concussion and a host of other injuries that would bother him the rest of his life. Today, Alabama state troopers saluted his horse-drawn casket as it moved across the bridge.

It took 50+ years to accomplish such a change. For John Lewis, Dr. King and those who stood with them, it was always about non-violence as both a strategy and as a tactic. The message was clear and unequivocal, undiluted by the special interests of those who might march with them. Marches were either silent or sung. Because of where many of the marches took place, there was comfort in numbers and in the understanding that each of us had been trained to remain nonviolent, no matter what. In this matter, we had to thank the Iowa City Quakers, who rehearsed us in being struck, spit on, and arrested. Until we could accept this tenant of nonviolence, we would be an unacceptable risk to the movement. We could not march, or raise money, or deliver food and clothing, or help register Blacks to vote in the South until we understood and we accepted the tenants of peaceful demonstration. And therein lay a movement for social justice that took less than a decade to build.

“Fundamental tenets of Dr. King’s philosophy of nonviolence described in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom. The six principles include:

PRINCIPLE ONE: Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people.It is active nonviolent resistance to evil.It is aggressive spiritually, mentally and emotionally.
PRINCIPLE TWO: Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding.The end result of nonviolence is redemption and reconciliation.The purpose of nonviolence is the creation of the Beloved Community.
PRINCIPLE THREE: Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice not people.Nonviolence recognizes that evildoers are also victims and are not evil people.The nonviolent resister seeks to defeat evil not people.
PRINCIPLE FOUR: Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.Nonviolence accepts suffering without retaliation.Unearned suffering is redemptive and has tremendous educational and transforming possibilities.
PRINCIPLE FIVE: Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate.Nonviolence resists violence of the spirit as well as the body.Nonviolent love is spontaneous, unmotivated, unselfish and creative.
PRINCIPLE SIX: Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.The nonviolent resister has deep faith that justice will eventually win.Nonviolence believes that God is a God of justice.” (The King Philosophy)

John Lewis’ entire career as a public servant carries this same message. He never lost sight of the changes that needed to come and of the power of the vote. When he announced that he had Stage 4 pancreatic cancer he reminded us that, “We must keep the faith, keep our eyes on the prize. We must go out and vote like we never ever voted before. Some people gave more than a little blood. Some gave their very lives.”

These days, marches intended to be peaceful have been infiltrated by those with motives that are at variance with the Black Lives Matter message. Burning, smashing, graffiti and stealing allow the media the visuals that are most exciting and therefore most reproduced. They obfuscate the message we thought we were marching for. In Portland, the larger issue has become the deployment of federal goons to control the crowds. In Seattle, the larger issue has become the changes in government rather than the fundamental message.

If you’re not already registered to vote, please do so right now. There is a lot hanging in the balance. That the BLM message has managed somehow to stay in the forefront of our consciousness in the midst of a pandemic is a measure of just how much needs to be fixed in this country.