Lawmakers of both parties said that when moral clarity was needed, they sought guidance again and again from the late Rep. John Lewis.
WASHINGTON – Lawmakers of both parties said that when moral clarity was needed, they sought guidance again and again from theThey marveled at the gentle spirit of the Democratic congressman from Georgia and wondered why the abuse he suffered as a civil rights leader hadn't made him bitter.
”I couldn’t believe it. But that’s John Lewis,” Wilson said. “He invested every single, solitary moment of his time trying to make the world a better place, especially for the children and the next generation to follow.”If Bishop, who was often on the same flights between Washington and Atlanta as Lewis, would walk through the airport with him, it always took twice as long as if Bishop had been alone.
“They literally jumped out of the cab, in the middle of the street, and cars were honking,” Clark remembers. “John was saying, `I love you, brother. I love you, sister. But you’ve got to be safe!’” “Those very same Republicans, when they had young people with him, they would bring that young person over to meet John Lewis,” Kelly said. “He had such respect from everybody.”Hurd, the only Black Republican in the House, met Lewis on his first day in the chamber in 2015.
“I was distraught that the House of Representatives, one of the greatest legislative bodies in the world, just gave eight seconds of silence,” the Massachusetts Democrat told USA TODAY. “I went and sat with Mr. Lewis and I said…I felt like we had to do something better.”"It was John that said, `Enough is enough,'" Chu said.
"They turned off the cameras, the House cameras, but we just held up our iPhones anyway," Chu said."And the nation tuned in, transfixed." “I think it connected with the American people in a profound way,” she said. “When you combined John Lewis’ powerful voice with the voices of the young people that came out of March For Our Lives, it turned it into a potent political force for good and for peace.”When Cicilline was strategizing how to advance protections for the LGBTQ community, he faced a potentially big hurdle within the Democratic Party.
“There was no one who could speak with more integrity and more conviction and who had a better right to speak about it than someone who nearly gave his life for the passage of the Civil Rights Act,” Cicilline said. “Even at this stage in his life, he was willing to get in the fight and to be active in making the case about why equality for the LGBTQ community mattered.
Contemplating the sacrifices Lewis made and the pain he endured, Scott said he also sensed from Lewis a joy that"came from his faith and his resilience about who he was and who this country would live up to be one day." “It was as powerful a moment as I've seen as the two of them broke down in tears,” Neal said. “It was really a very powerful moment for the thousands of people that were in the arena.”
Scalise, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the House, said meeting Lewis was like encountering a"larger than life" figure who nonetheless was surprisingly gentle and warm. Kelly said he’ll remember Lewis, not as much for the work they did together on the committee, but"just that the fact that he had time to spend with people.”
"Mississippi was the last place, as we called it, to be opened up by the Civil Rights Movement," Holmes Norton said."It's important to know the difference between confronting the police in Washington and in confronting police in the deep South.” Most of the old guard Atlanta civil rights leaders were openly united behind the incumbent, Johnson recalled in a tribute he recently published inBut the day before the election, Lewis was quoted as saying that he thought Johnson would make a great congressman.
“Now, members know how we get agitated when our colleagues poach our staff members,” Lee said during a floor tribute to Lewis. “When he told me about it, believe it or not, for the first time, I was thrilled that one of my staff members had been poached by John Lewis. What an honor.”Lewis reminded Cardenas, who grew up in a strict household, of how much he missed the rare occasions on which his mother or father would say, “I love you.
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