50 Years After March On Washington, John Lewis Still Fights

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Few have thought more deeply about the significance of this day as John Lewis. Now a longtime Democratic Congressman from Georgia and civil rights icon, John Lewis was the youngest speaker on August 28th, 1963.

NPR's Allison Keyes looks back on that moment.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN LEWIS: Those who have said be patient and wait, we must say that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want be free now.

ALLISON KEYES, BYLINE: John Lewis was 23 years old when he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and gazed upon some 250,000 people.

LEWIS: To stand on that podium and see that sea of humanity was so moving. I was so pleased. I was gratified.

KEYES: But in 1963, Lewis was the newly-elected chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. He and others from the activist organization wanted to call out politicians from both parties.

(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)

KEYES: That summer, the nation had seen black children attacked by dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham and the murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers. In his 1963 speech, Lewis thundered...

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

LEWIS: Where is the political party that would make it unnecessary to march on Washington?

KEYES: Lonnie Bunch is director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. He says Lewis originally planned to give a much angrier speech.

LONNIE BUNCH: Unlike all the other leaders there, John really experienced that violence. He experienced that violence as a Freedom Rider. He experienced that violence at the sit-ins. He found himself saying how crucial it was not to wait for freedom, because waiting for freedom also meant that there would be years more of violence.

LEWIS: I did say in my original text - listen, Mr. Kennedy, listen, Mr. President, listen, members of Congress: You're trying to take the revolution out of the streets and put it in the courts. You tell us to wait. You tell us to be patient. We cannot wait.

KEYES: Some thought the first draft of Lewis' speech was scary, so Bunch says march organizers convinced Lewis to tone it down for fear it could jeopardize the civil rights legislation President John F. Kennedy was supporting.

BUNCH: There was the fear that this version would not only alienate Congress, but it might alienate the potential middle America who might become supporters of this when it's seen as a moral issue.

KEYES: Fifty years later, though, Lewis is still fighting, as he told an appreciative crowd this past Saturday at a march convened to commemorate the original demonstration and address 21st-century issues.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

LEWIS: There are forces, there are people who want to take us back. We cannot go back. We've come too far. We want to go forward.

KEYES: Lewis says he never thought 50 years later, many of the same issues would be on the table.

LEWIS: I thought we had completed the fight for the right to vote, the right to participate in the democratic process. I thought we was in a process of reforming the justice system. But when I see something like what the Supreme Court did, or what happened to Trayvon Martin, it tells me over and over again that we're not there yet. We have not finished.

KEYES: Lewis is referring to the verdict in the killing of unarmed black teen Trayvon Martin and the recent Supreme Court's decision in June striking down part of the Voting Rights Act. Two years after the 1963 March on Washington, Lewis' skull was fractured as he marched for voting rights in Alabama on what's known as bloody Sunday. This past weekend, he reminded the crowd of that.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

LEWIS: I got arrested 40 times during the '60s, beaten and left bloody and unconscious. But I'm not tired. I'm not weary. I'm not prepared to sit down and give up. I am ready to fight and continue to fight, and you must fight.

KEYES: Looking back over the past 50 years, Lewis says it gives him hope that a man of color, President Obama, sits in the White House.

LEWIS: It's almost too much to believe that this man will be able to come and greet the participants that gather 50 years later.

KEYES: Lewis says he hopes today's young people are inspired by both the 1963 march and the commemorations. He says he wants them to love the way of non-violence and move their feet. Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.