Supported by
Although I am not here with you, I urge you to answer the highest call at your center and protect what you actually believe.
By John Lewis
Lewis, the civil rights leader who died on July 17, wrote the essay shortly before his death, which will be published on the day of his funeral.
Although my stay here is over, I need you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you have encouraged me. You filled me with hope about the upcoming bankruptcy of wonderful American history when you used your strength to make a difference in our society. Millions of other people motivated only by human compassion have placed the weight of division. Across the country and around the world, it is separating race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.
That’s why I had to make a stopover at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, even though I was admitted to the hospital the next day. I just had to see and feel for myself that after many years of silent testimony, the fact is still underway.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. It was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed and I was only 15 at the time. I’ll never get to the moment when it’s become so transparent that it may have been me. At the time, concern forced us as an imaginary prison, and the disturbing mind of possible brutality committed without an understandable explanation of why the bars were.
Although I was surrounded by two loving parents, many brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love may not protect me from the ungodly oppression that awaited outside this circle of relatives. Uncontrolled, out-of-control violence and government-sanctioned terror were in the force of turning an undeniable walk to the tent for a few bowling or a guiltless jogging morning on a lonely rural road into a nightmare. If we want to be a unified nation, we will have to realize what is so gently rooted in our hearts that it can deprive the Emanuel Mother Church in South Carolina of the best and brightest, shoot unwitting viewers in Las Vegas, and stifle hopes and dreams. Death. of a talented violinist like Elijah McClain.
Like many other young people today, I was looking for a way out, or some would say a way out, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about philosophy and the field of nonviolence. He said we’re all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it was not enough to say that the scenario would gradually improve. He said we both had an ethical legal responsibility to defend ourselves, to explain to us, and to make ourselves explicit. When you see something bad, you have to say it. You have to do anything. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and both generations will have to make their component to help build what we have called the beloved Community, a country and a global society at peace with itself.
Ordinary people with a common vision can redeem America’s soul by locating themselves in what I call intelligent problems, obligatory problems. Voting and participation in the democratic procedure are essential. Voting is the toughest nonviolent replacement agent you have in a democratic society. You have to use it because it’s not guaranteed. You can lose it.
It will also have to examine and learn about history, because humanity has been concerned in this heartbreaking existential struggle for a long time. People from each and every continent have been in place, for decades and centuries before you. The fact does not replace and that is why the answers developed long ago can help you locate responses to the demanding situations of our time. Continue to build the union between movements that extend all over the world because we will have to put aside our willingness to benefit from the exploitation of others.
Although I am not here with you, I urge you to answer the highest call at your center and protect what you actually believe. In my life, I have done all I can to show that the path of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the right way to the maximum way. Now it’s your turn to let freedom sound.
When historians take their pen to write the history of the 21st century, they say that it is their generation that, despite everything, has placed the heavy weight of hatred and that peace, in spite of everything, has triumphed over violence, aggression and war. That is why I say to you, walk in the wind, brothers and sisters, and allow the spirit of peace and the strength of eternal love to consult you.
John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death.
The Times has pledged to publish some letters to the editor. We would like to know what you think of this article or one of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow the New York Times Review segment on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.
Photography through John Lewis via David Deal / Redux
Advertising