R.I.P to a king aka John Lewis.
Student activism and SNCC
Nashville Student Movement
Civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy after the
March on Washington, 1963. Lewis is fourth from left.
Lewis graduated from the
American Baptist Theological Seminary in
Nashville, Tennessee, and then received a bachelor's degree in religion and philosophy from
Fisk University. As a student, he was dedicated to the civil rights movement. He organized
sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and took part in many other civil rights activities as part of the
Nashville Student Movement. The
Nashville sit-in movement was responsible for the desegregation of lunch counters in downtown Nashville. Lewis was arrested and jailed many times in the nonviolent movement to desegregate the downtown area of the city.
[13] He was also instrumental in organizing bus
boycotts and other
nonviolent protests in the fight for voter and racial equality.
While a student, Lewis was invited to attend
nonviolence workshops held at Clark Memorial United Methodist Church by the Rev.
James Lawson and Rev.
Kelly Miller Smith. There, Lewis and other students became dedicated adherents to the discipline and philosophy of nonviolence, which he practiced for the rest of his life.
[14]
Freedom Rides
This is video footage of President Clinton delivering remarks a dinner honoring Representative John Lewis.
In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original
Freedom Riders.
[3][15] There were seven whites and six blacks who were determined to ride from
Washington, D.C. to
New Orleans in an integrated fashion. At that time, several southern states continued to enforce laws prohibiting black and white riders from sitting next to each other on public transportation. The Freedom Ride, originated by the
Fellowship of Reconciliation and revived by
James Farmer and
Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in
Boynton v. Virginia (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional. The Freedom Rides also exposed the passivity of the government regarding violence against citizens of the country who were simply acting in accordance with the law.
[16] The federal government had trusted the notoriously
racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but did nothing itself, except to have
FBI agents take notes. The
Kennedy Administration then called for a cooling-off period, with a moratorium on Freedom Rides.
[17]
In the South, Lewis and other nonviolent Freedom Riders were beaten by angry mobs, arrested at times and taken to jail. At age 21, Lewis was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted while in
Rock Hill, South Carolina. He tried to enter a whites-only waiting room and two white men attacked him, injuring his face and kicking him in the ribs. Nevertheless, only two weeks later Lewis joined a
Freedom Ride that was bound for
Jackson, Mississippi. "We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back," Lewis said towards the end of his life in regard to his perseverance following the act of violence.
[18] Lewis was also imprisoned for 40 days in the
Mississippi State Penitentiary in
Sunflower County, Mississippi, after participating in a Freedom Riders activity in that state.
[19]
In an interview with
CNN during the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Lewis recounted the amount of violence he and the 12 other original Freedom Riders endured. In
Birmingham, the Riders were beaten with baseball bats, chains, lead pipes, and stones. They were arrested by police who led them across the border into Tennessee and let them go. They reorganized and rode to
Montgomery where they were met with more violence,
[20] and Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate. "It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the
Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious," said Lewis, remembering the incident.
[21] When CORE gave up on the Freedom Ride because of the violence, Lewis and fellow activist
Diane Nash arranged for the Nashville students to take it over and bring it to a successful conclusion.
[22][23][23]
In February 2009, 48 years after he was bloodied in a Greyhound station during a Freedom Ride, Lewis received a nationally televised apology from a white southerner and former
Klansman Elwin Wilson.
[24][25]
they were about to start a collection to raise money to cover Dr Welsings funeral they thanked Tariq for covering the cost
