Reflections
Congressman John Lewis Speaks to the Informer about Dr. King and the Movement Often called “one of the most courageous persons the Civil Rights Movement ever produced,” Congressman John Lewis (D-GA 5th District) has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties, and building what he calls “The Beloved Community” in America. His dedication to the highest ethical standards and moral principles has won him the admiration of many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle in the United States Congress. Lewis spoke exclusively with the Informer’s Tracey Gold Bennett about his work with Dr. King and the importance of the new memorial. When did you first become acquainted with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.? Just before I finished high school I was 17 years old, I wrote a letter to Dr. King and I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to attend www.washingtoninformer.com
a little school called Troy State College about ten miles from my home-- it is known as Troy University now and it didn’t admit Black students [back then]. I wanted to attend that school, and Dr. King wrote me back, sent me a roundtrip Greyhound bus ticket, and invited me to come to Montgomery to meet with him. On a Saturday morning, March of 1958, my father drove me to the Greyhound bus station. I boarded the bus and travelled the 50 miles from Troy to Montgomery, Ala. A young lawyer by the name of Fred Gray who had been the lawyer for Rosa Parks, Dr. King and the Montgomery movement met me and drove me to the First Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery. It was pastored by Dr. Abernathy a colleague of Dr. King. He ushered me into the pastor’s study where I saw Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy standing behind a desk. I was
so scared I didn’t know what to say or what to do. When were you aware that the work that you and Dr. King did would resonate around the world? During the events surrounding the March on Washington I became more convinced. Later I became fully convinced. I made a trip to Africa in the summer of 1964. Even before going to Africa, the NAACP had a slogan Free By ‘63 and there were young people teasing us in the student union at lunch that the whole of Africa would be free and liberated and we couldn’t get a hamburger at the lunch counter. Sometimes we had these sayings or slogans that the struggle in Selma is inseparable from the struggle in Johannesburg; Birmingham is inseparable from the struggle in Angola, or Zachary, Mississippi is inseparable from the struggle in Mozambique. When I spoke at the March on
Washington on Aug. 28, 1963 I was really working on my speech and I saw in a newspaper where a group of black women in southern Africa carrying signs which read “one man, one vote”. When did you know that the tide had changed with regard to gaining some of the rights that you sought? I knew when Dr. King had delivered a magnificent speech and the coverage it got. Also it became clear with the reaction our work got from members of Congress and when President Kennedy spoke to the nation about it. He said the issue of race is a moral issue. The March on Washington represented one of the finest hours in America. What are your thoughts about Dr. King’s monument on the National Mall? If someone had told me 48 years ago when Dr. King deliv-
ered his I Have a Dream Speech, if someone had told me that I would live to see the day that there would be a monument a memorial on the front porch of America, on the American mall to a man of peace, a man of love, a man of nonviolence, I would have said you don’t know what you’re talking about. I would have said “you’re crazy”. I’ve visited the monument two weeks ago. I was invited to go up on the scaffolding and rub his head. I cried. It is unreal. It is unbelievable and it is the best likeness of the man that I’ve seen. He is there in a beautiful setting between Jefferson and Lincoln that is so fitting. Dr. King was a leader of all people and he must be looked upon as one of the founding fathers of the new America. I think the memorial will emerge as one of the most visited monuments, and people will visit from all over the world.
Celebrating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial - The Washington Informer Special Issue / august 2011
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