A Good Trouble That I Can Get Into

Earlier this year, my husband wrote an essay about John Lewis and how he impacted his viewpoints about peacefully demonstrating. We are both very supportive of the 50501 and Indivisible protests (also known as No Kings protests), and have participated in quite a few activities protesting the reversal of Roe v Wade, the heavy-handedness of ICE, and mandates against our civil rights.

I think it is hard to stay uncommitted when you read about John Lewis and how the Civil Rights Movement was developed into a powerful method of protesting.

It was Sunday, March 7, 1965. I was a fifteen-year-old teenager, lying on the floor watching television with my family, when a News Break interrupted with footage of a protest that had turned violent. The African American protesters, dressed in their Sunday best attire, appeared peaceful and orderly, lined up at the bottom of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, ready to march into Montgomery to encourage signing up to vote. The non-aggressive protesters faced a blue wave of state troopers bludgeoning them with clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas. I saw women and children being beaten. I was mortified by what I was seeing. I asked my parents, “Why is this happening?”  They, too, were shaken and in tears. My family lived in a relatively small, predominantly white, Christian community. The neighbors, most of whom attended the same Methodist church potlucks, watched out for each other. So, what I saw turned my naïve, sheltered world upside-down.

This essay will touch on the life of John Lewis and how his unwavering faith and dedication to love, justice, and equality personally inspired me. Widely recognized as a one of the leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement and as a public servant, Lewis significantly influenced the political landscape and activism through his focus on nonviolent strategies. Culturally, his impact transcended national borders, shaping global conversations on civil rights, social justice, and the ongoing fight for human dignity.

John Lewis’s profound and enduring faith was implanted deep into his soul as he grew up in a family of simple, hardworking, and deeply religious sharecroppers in Alabama. Going to church -- even only twice a month -- was a difficult trek for rural Alabamians. It, however, was an important trip because of the impact it had on him. He was exposed to Bible stories that inspired him to become a preacher at a young age. He began to understand that all people were the people of God and that they were all equally respected, loved, and forgiven. At home, he preached to his chickens, believing he was communing with them. He delivered his first public sermon at the age of fifteen. John Lewis's faith story was compelling because he steadfastly believed that God protected him. He said, "Faith is being so sure of what the spirit has whispered in your heart that your belief in its eventuality is unshakable. Nothing can make you doubt that what you have heard will become a reality. Even if you do not live to see it come to pass, you know without one doubt that it will be. That is faith.” ¹

Faith is not easy. We are not infallible but focusing your arrow towards a personal peace requires us to remember the foundations of all religions: respect, love, and forgiveness. John Lewis always remembered to treat his family, friends, and enemies with love. He publicly forgave Elwin Wilson, a Ku Klux Klan member who was personally involved in a brutal assault against him. David Smith who admired Lewis and wrote his biography explained, “For him, it was all about forgiveness ... He believed that you couldn’t let your enemies pull you down into the ditch with them, that you had to love your enemies as much as you loved your friends and your loved ones.”²  Given all that John Lewis endured, it was clear that his faith commanded his path. His dedication to faith, love, respect, and forgiveness has inspired me to seek the better angels in myself and others.

Lewis’s commitment to faith, and love for all people, as well as his oratory skills, drew him into activism for civil rights. It was sparked by the Montgomery bus boycott, which began when Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to relinquish her seat on the bus. It was her act of courage that fueled his own commitment to the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis met Parks early in his activism, and they worked together on various campaigns. Lewis frequently spoke about Park’s influence on his own philosophy of nonviolent resistance as Carla D. Hayen wrote “She inspired us to find a way, to get in the way, to get in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble … She kept on saying to each one of us, you too can do something…And for people, if you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, do something. We cannot afford to be quiet.”³ 

Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership during the Montgomery bus boycott, Lewis wrote a letter to King expressing his admiration and seeking advice. King, realizing Lewis’s potential and passion, wrote back, sending him a round-trip bus ticket to Montgomery and an invitation to meet. Despite Lewis’s initial nervousness, this meeting marked the beginning of a close relationship between the two civil rights leaders, with King becoming a mentor and hero to Lewis. I remember watching the peaceful, nonviolent March on Washington on television earlier when I was thirteen years old. Both Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech and John Lewis’s speech, representing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) on the need for immediate action and more government protection of civil rights, had a profound impact on my views and thoughts on racism, and the activism required to make a change.

When Lewis was a leader in the establishment of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he was a key figure in helping to shape its direction and strategy while participating in many of its most significant actions. There were the Freedom Rides which were a series of bus trips through the South aimed at challenging racial segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals. The riders on these trips were both black and white. They were met with violent resistance and arrested in several southern towns. There were other forms of nonviolent protests, such as lunch counter sit-ins that were, also, met with the same resistance and imprisonment. In Lewis’s book Across That Bridge, he recalls “I think one of the greatest tests of our faith in the movement was being imprisoned in a maximum-security facility in the Mississippi Delta, Parchman Farm ... Knowing they would be arrested, our strategy was to flood the penal system until it overflowed with Americans calling for justice”.¹ Their approach was to not post bail which caused the jails to fill up with nonviolent protesters insisting their incarceration was wrong. The imprisoned protesters were, initially, separated from each other but they soon saw their strategy working, as every cell around them was filled with protesters singing hymns and songs of freedom to keep their spirits high. The prison officials, aggravated by the songs, took their Bibles, toothbrushes, mattresses and bedding away. This, however, did not and could not shake their faith. Ultimately, the state released them because continuing to punish them was counterproductive. The beauty of their strategy and commitment to peaceful activism, while being beaten and imprisoned, was something unique about the strength of the American Civil Rights Movement. I became more aware of the deep and binding unity in their cause for justice and equity. A unity so strong that, based on the American public’s enormous response to the horrific Selma to Montgomery march, (known as “Bloody Sunday”), it would eventually influence the federal government to enact the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

John Lewis’s cultural impact and activism continued to expand, eventually leading him to run for Congress. In 1986, he was elected to Georgia’s fifth congressional district of the United States House of Representatives. Being elected to Congress provided him the platform to enact legislative change. He was a powerful voice in advocating for the poor, the forgotten and marginalized communities. His reputation for integrity, courage, and dedication to human rights earned him the admiration of his colleagues. “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called Lewis the ‘conscience of the Congress’ who was revered and beloved on both sides of the aisle of the Capitol … Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised the longtime Georgia congressman as a model of courage and a peacemaker.”⁴  President Obama recognized Lewis’s profound impact and the role he played in making his own presidency possible. I can only imagine the pride Lewis had to feel seeing the historic achievement of Obama’s election after such a long civil rights struggle.

Lewis’s impact would move to people from other countries who had been studying the American Civil Rights Movement, and the approach and strategies utilized in nonviolent activism. Some of the countries (Egypt, England, India, Germany, South Africa, Ireland, Japan, and Russian) recognized that a non-violent strategy can be successful. The long-lasting and global impact John Lewis has had and continues to have is clear.

John Lewis's life motivated me, not only through his steadfast faith but also through a powerful example of character, love, forgiveness, and unwavering commitment to civil rights and human dignity. Researching John Lewis’s character of faith, love, and forgiveness, as well as his dedication to peace, justice, and equality, has sprouted the seed planted deep within my soul the day I witnessed the horrific beatings on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It took sixty years to mature but I am now a changed man. His story moved me to do something I wasn’t used to doing: protesting. It’s a new adventure -- one that requires commitment and action. I’m now marching, writing postcards, and contributing to political action groups that have clout.

John Lewis died of stage four pancreatic cancer on July 17, 2020, at the age of 80. Shortly before his death, he wrote a final essay, titled “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation” and requested that it be published in the New York Times on the day of his funeral, July 30, 2020.

“Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe…While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life, you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people, motivated simply by human compassion, laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world, you set aside race, class, age, language, and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.”¹

Today, we see many heartbreaking stories regarding immigration, deportation, and the demonization of people we consider different from us. We could be facing the collapse of our democracy, the rule of law, and the transition to a dictatorship. The activist within me has risen to speak out against what I see as wrong. I am prepared to get into “Good Trouble”. I have my driver’s license in my pocket, memorized my sister’s phone number, and put my phone on automatic upload to the Cloud in the event I am ever arrested. I do not expect to be but you never know.

1 Lewis, John. Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change. Legacy Lit, 2017.  

2 Smith, David. “‘He’d Been through the Fire’: John Lewis, Civil Rights Giant, Remembered.” The Guardian, 15 Jan. 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/15/john-lewis-civil-rights-giant-biography-raymond-arsenault

3 Hayden, Carla D. "Remembering John Lewis: The Power of ‘Good Trouble’." Library of Congress Blog, 19 July 2020 https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2020/07/remembering-john-lewis-the-power-of-good-trouble

4 Barrow, Bill, and Andrew Taylor. " Congressional Leaders Pay Respects to Rep. John Lewis,”

PBS, 27 July 2020 https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/watch-live-rep-john-lewis-lies-in-state-at-the-u-s-capitol-monday-july-27