We Had Sneakers, They Had Guns: The Kids Who Fought for Civil Rights in Mississippi

Thirty-five. John Lewis

210 t h i r t y - f i v e John Lewis before going to Mississippi in 2001, Gloria and I met with John Lewis in his congressional office in Washington. Of all the leadership I had come to know in SNCC, this former chairman was the only one who could speak of love with a religious simplicity that did not permit embarrassment . Unlike many in the movement who regarded love and nonviolence merely as a sometimes useful tactic, Lewis had been taught from his earliest days to embrace love as a way of life. “I was taught that there was a divine spark in every human being,” he said quietly, “and you didn’t have the right to destroy or abuse that spark.” That was not a voice often heard in the halls of the United States Congress, and it raised some skeptical eyebrows. But it was not derided by many because Lewis was a legitimate hero, nearly a martyr, of the civil rights movement. And he was a rare breed from Georgia. John Lewis was a rising black political star of the New South. From the earliest days of the Freedom Rides in 1960 in Mississippi to the vicious attack by the police on the Selma March in Alabama, John has never deviated from the principle of nonviolence. Of all the people I came to know in the civil rights movement, none suffered more physical assaults and injury from those who would deny him his full rights as a citizen. Stubbornly and consistently, he has answered hate and violence with a calm dignity and forbearance. “When someone spat at me,” he said, “or started beating me, or arrested me, I didn’t have an ill feeling toward that person. The struggle was not against him. It was against custom, tradition, the system, bad laws. So nonviolence was a natural way for me.” 44. Calling Washington. “Three of our boys are missing!” 212   |   The Roads from the Delta “I confess I find it astonishing, John,” I said. “I remember so clearly when the mounted police came charging into you and the marchers at the Pettus Bridge in Montgomery, and you were able to simply stand there. I could never have done that.” He sat quiet in his chair. “I had learned from my childhood that love is a more excellent way.” His low, sonorous voice filled the room. The afternoon sun glinted on a tall wall of honors and tributes to the eight-term congressman from Atlanta. “A more excellent way,” he said again. “And over the years as a congressman, I have found that violence tends to create more problems than it solves.” With his modesty and reticence, he had seemed an unlikely chairman of SNCC when I first saw him at the orientation in Oxford in 1964. But as I learned in the months to follow, real leaders came in all sizes, all colors, and all styles. Lewis, who has gained a reputation as a wily, sophisticated, and tough campaigner, besting even his old comrade Julian Bond in a Democratic primary, is successfully carving out a long and distinguished career in the House of Representatives. To many, he appears closer in spirit and style to Martin Luther King than to a political bruiser like Stokely Carmichael, who wrested the SNCC leadership from him. It was a painful loss for Lewis, but he has learned to be a survivor. There are some who believe him to be more calculating and determined than a casual spectator might expect, observing his quiet demeanor and knowing of his gentle, rural, Baptist background. But he is a fierce champion of the minority American, and a proud possessor of his Georgia seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. “For many years,” he observed, “within the movement itself, a group of young people wanted to build ‘the beloved community,’ a truly interracial democracy. I think in the summer of ‘64, in Mississippi, those young blacks and whites probably represented one of the finest hours in American history. Those people really did believe that somehow, and someway, that by literally holding on to those ideals, putting their bodies on the line, they could redeem the soul of America.” His eyes grew distant, and then focused on the two of us across the desk. “They thought they could make America something different, and something better.” John Lewis   |   213 “And did they?” asked...