Civil Rights Pioneer and Icon, John Lewis, Passes at 80
The civil rights leaders led his life my example that fighting for justice is the only option.
The civil rights leaders led his life my example that fighting for justice is the only option.
In 1965, Lewis and fellow activist Hosea Williams led what was planned as a peaceful 54-mile march through Alabama from Selma to Montgomery. The march, a protest of the discriminatory practices and Jim Crow laws that prevented African Americans from voting, would be remembered in history as “Bloody Sunday,” one of the most dramatic and violent incidents of the American Civil Rights Movement.
The 17 students and five faculty and staff chaperones traveled more than 2,000 miles to Montgomery, Alabama, during the first week of April. Their days were spent volunteering with local youth and seniors at Resurrection Catholic Missions and touring historical landmarks in communities at the center of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
I was born of a White mother and a Black father in 1961 in Southern California during a time when America was experiencing segregation across the nation. Although many of us in California did not feel the same effects as many of our relatives in the South, segregation was still alive and well throughout the country. The Civil Rights Movement was in its beginning stages and the 50’s and 60’s were pivotal in changing the face and climate of America. The Civil Rights Movement was organized by African Americans with the goal to help end racial discrimination and provide equal rights to all under the law.
Multiple potential contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination are elevating the issue of voting rights as they prepare to launch campaigns. They’re vowing to oppose Republican-backed efforts to require identification to vote, reinstate protections eliminated by a 2013 Supreme Court ruling and frequently highlight the necessity of counting every vote.
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery shares stories about some of the 4,400 Black people slain in lynchings and other racial killings between 1877 and 1950. The names of those killed, if they are known, are engraved on 800 steel columns, with copies to be adopted by each U.S. county where lynchings happened.
The house was included in an auction by Guernsey’s in New York as part of a larger sale of African American cultural and historic items. It was listed with a minimum bid of $1 million, with a presale estimate of $1 million to $3 million.
The reckoning that began with the Civil Rights Movement has continued; the memorial is a testament to that. People of good will want the healing to continue. The vibrancy and prosperity of the New South requires that the healing continue. But to heal wounds, you have to take the shrapnel out first. To move to reconciliation, you must start with the truth.
The summit, museum and memorial are projects of the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based legal advocacy group founded by attorney Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson won a MacArthur “genius” award for his human rights work.
Fifty years after his assassination, some of these barriers have fallen _ but others remain.
The City of West Hollywood Celebrates Black History Month with a Screening and Discussion of John Lewis: Get in the Way