Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. But perseverance finishes its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing. It is a great honor to be back at Ebenezer Baptist church in the pulpit of its greatest pastor, doctor Martin Luther king jr. To pay my respects of perhaps his finest disciple. An american, whose faith was tested again and again, to produce a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance. John robert lewis and to those who have spoken, president bush and president clinton, madam speaker and the reverend, johns family, friends, his beloved staff and i have come here today to because i like so Many Americans, owe a great debt to john lewis and his forceful vision of freedom. Now, this country is a constant work in progress and we are born with instructions to form a more perfect union, explicit in those words is the idea that we are imperfect and that what gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further than any in the past. John lewis, first of the freedom writers, head of the student on the nonviolent coordinating committee, youngest speaker for the march on washington, leader of the march for selma to montgomery and member of congress representing the people of this state in this district for 33 years, mentor to young people including me at the time until his final day on the earth and he not only embraced that responsibility but he made it his lifes work. It isnt bad for a boy from tr troy. John was born into modest means, that means he was poor. In the heart of the jim crow south the parents who picked somebody elses cotton, apparently he did not take to farm work and on days when he was supposed to help his brothers and sisters with their labor he would hide under the porch and make a break for the school bus when it showed up. His mother, willa mae lewis, nurtured that curiosity in this shy, serious child and once you learn something, she told her son, once you get something inside your head, no one can take it away from you. As a boy, john listened to the door after bedtime and listening to his friends complain about the clan. One sunday he heard doctor king preached on the radio and as a College Student in tennessee he signed up for the workshops on the tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience. John lewis was getting something inside his head, an idea he cannot shake, that nonviolence and civil disobedience were the means to change laws but also change hearts and change minds and change nations. And change the world. You have to organize the National Campaign of 1960. He, and other young men women, sat at a segregated lunch counter welldressed, straightbacked, refusing to let a milkshake poured on their heads or a cigarette extinguished on their backs or a foot aimed at the ribs and refused to let that dent their dignity. Or their sense of purpose. After a few months the National Campaign achieved the First Successful desegregation of public facilities of any major city in the south. John got a taste of jail for the first second, third well, several times. But he also got a taste of victory and it consumed him with righteous purpose and he took the battle deeper into the south. That same year just weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that segregation of interstate bus facilities was unconstitutional, john and Bernard Lafayette bought two tickets climbed aboard a greyhound, sat up front and refused to move. This was months before the First Official freedom writer. He was doing a test and the trip was unsanctioned and few knew what they were up to. At every stop through the night, apparently the angry driver stormed out of the bus and into the bus station and john and bernard had no idea what he might come back with or who he might come back with. Nobody was there to protect them and there were no camera crews to record events. Sometimes we read about this and we kind of take it for granted or at least we act as if it was inevitable. Imagine the courage of two people malia age, younger than my oldest daughter on their own to challenge an entire infrastructure of oppression. John was only 20 years old but he pushed all 20 of those years to the center of the table, betting everything, but in all of it that his example could challenge centuries of convention and generations of brutal violence and countless daily indignities suffered by african americans. Like john the baptist preparing the way, like those Old Testament prophets speaking truth to kings, john lewis did not hesitate and he kept on getting on board buses and sitting at lunch counters and got his mug shot taken again and again, marched again and again on a mission to change america. Spoke to quarter of a Million People at the march on washington when he was just 23 and helped to organize the freedom summer in mississippi when he was just 24. At the ripe old age of 25 john was asked to lead the march from selma to montgomery and he was warned that the governor had ordered troopers to use violence and that he and Jose Williams and others led them across that bridge anyway and we have all seen the film and the footage in the photographs and president clinton mentioned the trenchco trenchcoat, the knapsack, the book to read, the apple to eat, the toothbrush, apparently jails werent big on such creature comforts and when you look at those pictures and john looks so young and he is small in stature and looked, and every bit that shy, serious child that his mother had raised and yet he is full of purpose and god put perseverance in him and we know what happened to the marchers that day, their bones were cracked by billy clubs, their eyes and lungs were choked with teargas and they nil to pray which made their heads easier targets and john was struck in the skull and thought he was going to die. Surrounded by the site of Young Americans gagging and bleeding and trampled, victims in their own country of state sponsored violence and the thing is i imagine initially, that day, the troopers thought they had won the battle. You can imagine the conversations they had after words. [applause] you can imagine them saying we showed them. They figured they would turn the protesters back over the bridge and they kept and they preserved a system that denied the basic humanity of their fellow citizens except that this time there were some cameras there and this time the world saw what happened and bore witness to black americans who were asking for nothing more than to be treated like other americans. They were not asking for special treatment, just equal treatment, promised to them a century before and almost another century before that and when john woke up and checked himself out of the hospital he would make sure the world saw a movement that was, in the words of scripture, hard pressed on every side but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed. They returned, a battered prof profit, bandages around his head and he said more marchers will come now and the people came in the troopers parted in the marchers reached montgomery and their words reached the white house and lyndon johnson, son of the south, said we shall overcome and the Voting Rights act was signed into law. The life of john lewis was in so many ways the exception. Vindicated the faith in our founding, redeemed that faith. That most american of ideas, the idea that any of us, ordinary people, without rank or wealth or title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation and come together and challenge the status quo and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals. What a radical idea and what a revolutionary notion, this idea that any of us ordinary people, a young kid from troy, can stand up to the powers and principalities and say no, this isnt right, this isnt true, this isnt just. We can do better. On the battlefield of justice americans like john and americans like reverend lowery and ct vivian and two other patriots we lost this year and liberated all of us in the Many Americans came to take for granted and america was built by people like them and america was built [applause] by john lewis is. He, as much as anyone, and her history brought this country a little bit closer to our highest ideals and some day when we finish that long Journey Towards freedom when we do form a more perfect union, whether it is years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries john lewis will be a founding father of that bowler, farrar better america. [applause] and yet, as exceptional as john was, here is the thing john never believed that what he did was more than any citizen of this country can do and i mentioned in the statement that the day john passed the thing about how gentle and humble john was and despite this storied, remarkable career he treated everyone with kindness and respect because because it was innate to him, this idea that any of us can do what he did if we are willing to persevere that he believed in all of us there exists the capacity for great courage and that in all of us there is a longing to do what is right and that in all of us there is a willingness to love all people and to extend to them their godgiven rights to dignity and respect and so many of us lose that sense and it is taught out of us and we start feeling this and in fact, we cant afford to extend kindness or decency to other people that we are better off if we are above other people and looking down on them and so often that is encouraged in our culture but john always said were always thought the best in us and he never gave up and never stopped speaking up because he saw the best in us. He believed in us even when we did not believe in ourselves and as a congressman he kept hitting himself arrested and as a old man he did not set out any fight and sat in all night long on the floor of the United States capital and i know his staff was stressed. The testing of his faith produces perseverance and he knew that the marches are not over and that the race is not yet won and that we have not yet reached that blessed exultation where we are judged by the content of our character and he knew from his own life that progress is fragile and that we have to be vigilant against the darker currents of this countrys history and of our own history where there are whirlpools of violence and hatred and despair that can always rise again and bull connor may be gone but today we witnessed with our own eyes please officers kneeling on the next of black americans. George wallace may be gone but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use teargas against peaceful demonstrators. [applause] we may no longer have the number of jellybeans in a jar to order to cast a ballot but even as we sit here there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive id laws and impacting our Voting Rights with surgical precision even undermining the Postal Service in the runup to elections that will be dependent on mailin ballots but people dont get sick. [applause] preach. I know this is a celebration of johns life and there are some who might say we shouldnt dwell on such things but that is what i am talking about. John lewis devoted his time on this earth biting the very attacks on democracy and what is best for america that we are seen circulate right now. He knew every single one of us has a godgiven power and that the fate of this democracy, it depends on how we use it that democracy isnt automatic and it has to be nurtured and has to be tended to and we have to work at it. It is hard. So he knew that it depends on whether we summon a measure, just a measure of johns moral courage to question what is right and what is wrong and call things as they are. He said that as long as he had breath and his body he would do everything he could to preserve this democracy and as long as we have breath in our bodies that we have to continue his cause. If we want our children to grow up in a democracy, not just with elections but a true democracy a representative democracy, bighearted, tolerant, vibrant, inclusive america perpetual self creation then we will have to be more like john and we dont have to do all the things he had to do because he did them for us but weve got to do something. As the lord instructed paul, do not be afraid, go on a speaking do not be silent for i am with you and no one will attack you or harm you for i have many in this city who are my people and everybodys got to come out folks, we got all those people in the city but they cant do nothing. Like john we got to keep getting into that good trouble and he knew that non violent protests were patriotic and a way to raise Public Awareness and put a spotlight on injustice and make the powers that be uncomfortable like john we dont have to choose between protests and politics and that is not an either or situation but a both and situation and we have to engage in protests where that is effective but we also have to translate our passion and our causes in the loss and institutional practices and that is why john ran for congress 34 years ago. Like john we got to fight even harder for the most powerful tool we have which is the right to vote and the Voting Rights act is one of the crowning achievements of our democracy and it is why john crossed that bridge and why he spilled his blood and, by the way, it was the result of democratic and republican efforts. President bush who spoke here earlier and his father signed its renewal when they were in office. [applause] president clinton did not have to because it was the law when he arrived so instead he made a law to make it easier for people to register to vote. [applause] but once the Supreme Court weekend the Voting Rights act some state legislators unleashed a flood of laws designed specifically to be make voting harder especially, by the way, state legislators where there is a lot of minority turnout and population growth and that is not necessarily a mystery or an accident. There is an attack on our democratic freedoms and we should treat it as such. If politicians want to honor john and i am so grateful for the legacy and work of all the congressional leaders who are here but there is a better way than a statement calling him a hero and you want to honor john, lets honor him by revitalizing the lot that he was willing to die for. [applause] and by the way, naming it the john lewis Voting Rights act that is a fine tribute but john would not want us to stop their just trying to get back to where we already were and once we passed the john lewis Voting Rights act we should keep marching to make it even better by making sure every american is automatically registered to vote, including former inmates who earned their Second Chance that make. [applause] by adding polling places and expanding early voting and making election day a National Holiday so if you are somebody who is working in a factory or you are raising a mom whos got to be at her job and does not get time off you can still cast your ballot by guaranteeing that every american citizen has equal representation in our government, including the american citizens who live in washington dc and in puerto ri rico, there are americans by ending some of the partisan gerrymandering so that all voters have the heart to choose their politicians, not the other way around and if all this takes eliminating the filibuster another jim crow relic in order to secure the godgiven rights of every american then that is what we should do. [applause] even if we do all this and even if every bogus Voter Suppression laws are struck off the books today we got to be honest with ourselves for too many of us choose not to exercise the franchise, too many of our citizens believe their vote will not make a difference or they buy into the cynicism that, by the way, is the central strategy of Voter Suppression to make you discouraged to stop believing in your own power so we will also have to remember what john said, if you dont do everything, you can do [inaudible] and they will remain the same. The only pass this way once and you have to give it all you have. As long as young people are protesting in the streets hoping real change takes hold i am hopeful but we cant casually abandon them at the ballot box not when few elections have been as urgent on so many levels as this one. We cant treat voting as an errand to run if we have some time and we have to treat it as the most important action we can take on behalf of democracy and like john we have to give it all we have. I was proud that john lewis was a friend of mine and i met him when i was in law school and he came to speak and i went up and said, mr. Lewis, you are one of my heroes and what inspired me more than anything as a young man was to see what you and reverend lawson and bob moses and diane nash and others did and he got that kind of all shocks, thank you very much and next time i saw him i had been elected to the United States senate and i told him john, i am here because of you and on Inauguration Day in 2008, 2009 he is one of the first people i greeted and hugged on that stand and i told him this is your day to. He was a good, kind and gentle man and he believed in us even when we dont believe in ourselves. It is fitting that the last time john and i shared a public forum was on zoom and im pretty sure neither he nor i set up the zoom call because we do not know how to work it. And as a virtual town hall with the gathering of young actors who had been helping to lead the summers demonstrations in the wake of George Floyds death and after words i spoke with john privately and he could not have been prouder to see this new generation of people standing up for freedom and equality in a new generation that was intent on voting and protecting the right to vote and in some cases a new generation running for Political Office and i told him all those young people gone, every race, every religion from every background and gender or sexual orientation, john, those are your children. They learned from your example and even if they do not always know it. They understood through him what american citizenship requires even if they had only heard about his courage through the history books. By the thousands faceless, anonymous, relentless young people, blackandwhite, have taken our whole nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the Founding Fathers in the formulation of the constitution and the declaration of independence and doctor king said that in that 1960s and it came true again this summer. We see it outside our windows in big cities and rural towns, and men, and women, young and old, straight americans, lgbtq americans, blacks who long for equal treatment and whites who can no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of their fellow americans. [applause] we see it and everybody doing the hard work of overcoming complacency and from overcoming our own fears and prejudices and our own hatreds and you see it in people trying to be better, truer versions of ourselves and that is what john lewis teaches us. That is where real courage comes from, not from turning on each other but by turning towards one another. Not by sowing hatred and division but by spreading love and truth, not by avoiding our responsibilities to create a better america or a better world but by embracing those responsibilities with joy and perseverance in discovering that in our beloved community we do not walk alone and what a gift john lewis was. We are also lucky to have had him walk with us for a while and show us the way. God bless you all. God bless america. God bless this gentle soul who who pulled us closer to his promises. [applause] now, the entire Funeral Service for representative john lewis in atlanta, georgia. Friends and family
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