In the week immediately following their deaths on the same day, it would be hard to write a post in the age of Black Lives Matter and our increasing awareness of the role of white privilege and economic inequality in the persistence of healthcare disparities without commenting on the contributions to our nation of the Reverend Doctor C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis. I am embarrassed to say that I knew almost nothing about Dr. Vivian and his contributions to Civil Rights. I think that I may vaguely remember that President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, in 2013, and at that time I also was surprised to realize that he looked a lot like an older Chuck Berry, the father of rock and roll. I hope that you take a minute to read his obituary, if like me, you do not know the extent of his lifelong commitment to racial justice through non violent actions.
What I have come to realize is that C.T. Vivian was one of those individuals who is essential to the success of any organization or movement. Dr. Vivian was an influential member of Dr. King’s inner circle. His obituary in The New York Times describes him as a “field general for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference.” When I read what he did it occurs to me that he was like the Chief Operating Officer of Dr. King’s organization, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
C.T. Vivian played a crucial organizing role in the Civil Rights movement of the sixties, and then after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voters Rights Act of 1965, and Dr. King’s death in 1968, he settled into the hard work of maximizing the benefits of what had been won while continuing to devote his life to the achievement of the entirety of what the promises of opportunity and equality really meant. It is a reality that the important Civil Rights achievements of the fifties and sixties were statements about what should be, and not a realization of the full benefit of what they seemed to promise. Brown versus the Board of Education of Topeka said in 1954 that “separate but equal” was wrong, but it took until 1970, long after I had finished high school and college and had moved to Boston for medical school, for the public schools of South Carolina to be fully integrated.
The full promise of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is still not realized, and the Black Lives Matter movement is a testimony to that fact. The Voters Rights Act was passed in 1965 and southern states still are making it difficult for Black Americans to vote. Just ask Stacey Abrams about why she is not the governor of Georgia, or ask yourself what is behind the president’s resistance to voting by mail.
C.T. Vivian spent his life trying to solidify the gains that were made in the sixties. We all know the names of the “stars.” They are on the marquee, and they are the ones whose images and words are burned into our collective memory. We don’t always know the names of the people who did the actual “organizing” of successful coalitions and grass roots operations, sat at the lunch counters, rode the buses, were the people organizing a march, or were in jail after the march.
There were many less well known, but very important heroes of the CIvil Rights movement who put their life on the line as C.T. Vivian did many times, and then continued to live the cause in the intervening fifty years of very slow progress that has culminated in the Black Lives Matter resurgence of the spirit of their work. In an effective movement, there are many roles to play, and some of the roles enable others and make the work of the “stars” possible. As an example of that fact, I was surprised to learn years ago that St. Paul didn’t write his “letters.” A secretary named Tertius (Roman 16:22) wrote down what he said and was proud enough of his contribution to put his name in the last verse of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Every movement is dependent upon its Tertiuses and its C.T. Vivians.
John Lewis’ name was on the marquee from the moment he took the speaker’s podium at the march on Washington as the twenty three year old leader of the Student NonViolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) as the warm up act to Dr. King’s “I Have A Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington. He was in his early twenties, but was speaking as a seasoned veteran of the Civil Rights Movement. If you have an extra moment of time I would suggest that you read his speech. In many ways, what he said describes our current moment in time as accurately as it described the world of 1963.
My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles”? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington?
“Eastland” was Senator James Eastland, from Mississippi, who was the “voice of the white South.” He did not hide the fact that he considered Black Americans to be members of an inferior race. Unlike many “Southern Democrats” he did not leave the Democratic Party after Lyndon Johnson turned his back on the South and pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and The Voters Rights Act of 1965, but there is little evidence that he ever embraced racial equity. Party affiliations of many Southern Democrats have changed since 1963, but what has not changed is that many politicians continue to put other interests ahead of racial justice, equity, and the need to address the social determinants of health. The reference to Javits and Goldwater describes the liberal/conservative split within the Republican Party of 1963. The only thing that has changed in the interim is that Democrats have become the party of civil rights and the pursuit of progress toward equality and equity while the current Republican party has become the party favoring maintenance of the status quo.
The images that are described by the strongest words of the speech are still reflected in the events and emotions that followed the killing of George Floyd almost two months ago:
To those who have said, “Be patient and wait,” we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. And then you holler, “Be patient.” How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now. We do not want to go to jail. But we will go to jail if this is the price we must pay for love, brotherhood, and true peace.
The header to this post shows a young John Lewis speaking at the March on Washington in 1963, and his older image as the man Nancy Pelosi called “The Conscience of the Congress” before he became ill with pancreatic cancer which was the cause of his death. We all know that throughout his life he continued to speak out and offer the option of love, brotherhood, and true peace. His last public appearance was in early June when he asked to visit the declaration that “Black Lives Matter” that was painted in huge block letters over two blocks of 16th Street in Washington as it approaches the White House. After visiting the site he said:
“Despite real progress, I can’t help but think of young Emmett today as I watch video after video after video of unarmed Black Americans being killed, and falsely accused. My heart breaks for these men and women, their families, and the country that let them down — again.
My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds, and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, non-violent fashion, we must do so again.”
I must assume that “young Emmett” is a reference to Emmett Till, a fourteen year old African American boy from Chicago who was brutally murdered and then his body was thrown into the Tallahassee River by two white men while he was visiting family in the South during his school vacation in 1957. His mother brought his tortured remains back to Chicago for burial where over 20,000 people viewed his bloated and butchered body in an open casket. The murderers were “acquitted” by an all white jury, but Emmett Till’s “lynching” was a major motivation for the fight for civil rights in the late fifties in the run up to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was events like the death of Emmett Till and the Montgomery bus boycott that motivated a young John Lewis to write a letter to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1958 that caused Dr. King to send him a bus ticket to come see him. I wonder how many Black men and boys died before Emmett Till’s mother had the courage to show her son’s body, how many Black men and boys were murdered for their race between Emmett Till and George Floyd, and how many more will die before we put an end to the hatred that motivates these events. Again, I would suggest reading John Lewis’ obituary even if you think that you know all about him.
In my reading about John Lewis’ remarkable life I saw him referred to as the last survivor of the “big six” of Civil Rights. According to that label, the big six were Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, Martin Luther King. Jr., and John Lewis. There is a picture of the big six as they planned the March on Washington in 1963. John Lewis was the youngest, but only about ten years younger than Dr. King. The other men might be called the elders of the group whose work over their lifetimes prepared the way for Dr. King. John Lewis was a large part of why we have not lost the wisdom and have continued the work of Dr. King. Now that that the big six have faded into memory, one wonders whether the ability to maintain any element of non violence will be possible in the face of the continued exposure of the violence and inequity that Black and other minorities experience every day in America. There are those who have also taken up the mantles of the James Eastmans, George Wallaces, and Strom Thurmonds, the intolerant leaders of the sixties who advocated for a continuation of a divided America. It is the continuing lack of resolution of the issues that John Lewis and C.T. Vivan spent a lifetime trying to solve that most threatens our collective future.
John Lewis was a brave and brilliant man who left us much wisdom in many memorable quotes. His congressional website still gives evidence after his death about where he stood on the healthcare issues of our day. He was very clear that in his opinion healthcare was a right and not a privilege.
“We will stand up for what is right, for what is fair and what is just. Health care is a right and not a privilege.”
He applied the same sense of what is right to all people who suffer from inequality.
“I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I’ve heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.”
Some of his remarks give us a valuable insight into the powerful forces that motivated him:
“The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.”
And, some not only give us insight into what motivated him but also give us a picture of the changes that he was so much a part of making happen:
“I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956 with my brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was only 16 years old, we went down to the public library trying to check out some books and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for colors! It was a public library! I never went back to that public library until July 5th, 1998, by this time I’m in the Congress, for a book signing of my book “Walking with the Wind””
John Lewis was a realist. He knew that there was a cost associated with speaking out. I am sure that Muhammad Ali and Colin Kaepernick, and so many other Black athletes and entertainers would have known exactly what he was talking about when he said:
“We live in a country where we’re supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there’s a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you.”
John Lewis faced the future with hope and I am sure that he knew that like Dr. King he would never live to enter the “promised land.” That thought is reflected in the final two quotes that I will bring to your attention:
- “If you’re not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take that long hard look and just believe that if you’re consistent, you will succeed”
- “We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We’ve come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.”
To those thoughts I would add that we must not forget all of the efforts of the less well known C.T. Vivians and the better known “marque leaders” like Dr. King and John Lewis. They have done their best and endured much loss, personal pain, abuse, and hardship. They did their job. For there to be lasting benefit from their work we must continue the efforts that they and so many millions of nameless members of the movement for justice and equity have given us. The big six and many of the effective unknown and forgotten are now gone. It is up to the rest of us to pursue the values that will improve the health of the nation and so much more. There will be continued resistance to the values and objectives of John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and Dr. King. What they accomplished can be reversed in a short time under an authoritarian government that is willing to send agents into our cities to enforce their distorted sense of “the rule of law.” John Lewis knew that if one minority continuously suffered indignities and inequality, sooner or later there would be no freedom, reliable justice, or even affordable healthcare for anyone.
