7/26/2020 Perseverance and the long view
The beauty of a summer morning had me outside until the temperature climbed. The peace of the outdoors helps me balance the perceptions of so much strife in our society; I hope you have the same opportunity.
Yesterday my beloved aunt and uncle celebrated sixty-one years of marriage; and my mother sent me a notebook in which she'd written some of her memories of her childhood. And last week, John Lewis, Black Congressman from Atlanta, Georgia, died at the age of eighty. Among all of us, the members of their generation might be the best equipped to take the long view. To see the troubles of the day in context. And to know what it takes to persevere. As I read about my mother's young life, and listen to the words of Congressman Lewis, I think about the term "greatest generation," typically applied to those who fought in World War II.
In a way, Congressman Lewis fought in a war that was never declared.The fight for civil rights in the 1960s included groups like the congressman's Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which staged sit-ins and marches, including the march across the Edmund Pettis bridge that became known as "Bloody Sunday." The congressman was one of the first to be beaten by the law enforcement officers gathered to stop the march at Governor Wallace's orders. SNCC members were trained in nonviolent resistance, and did not return violence against their attackers. Not on the Edmund Pettis bridge, not in the lunch counters. Not when law enforcement officers used horses and beatings to push them back, not when white community members poured catsup and mustard on them, pulled them off their counter stools, and hauled them into the streets.
According to Congressman Lewis in his reflections, it was their commitment to the deep personal growth required to truly maintain nonviolence, their commitment to the spiritual (for them) component of their inner work that stopped them from striking back. And, it was the recognition that their only path to transformative action was to radically humanize even the individuals who resorted to violence against them.
In an interview recorded in 2013, Congressman Lewis explained. I'll share a few excerpts here; read the full transcript or listen to the complete conversation at this link: https://onbeing.org/programs/john-lewis-love-in-action/
"When we were sitting in, it was love in action. When we went on the freedom ride, it was love in action. The march from Selma to Montgomery was love in action. We do it not simply because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s love in action. That we love our country, we love a democratic society, and so we have to move our feet."
[About the training the group did before holding a sit-in or march:] "We did go through the motion, the drama, of saying that if someone kick you, spit on you, pull you off the lunch counter stool, continue to make eye contact. Continue to give the impression, yes, you may beat me, but I’m human. Be friendly, try to smile, and just stay nonviolent. And during the nonviolent campaign in a city like Nashville and so many other parts of the American South, you never had one incident of someone striking back or hitting back."
"We, from time to time, would discuss if you see someone attacking you, beating you, spitting on you, you have to think of that person, you know, years ago that person was an innocent child, innocent little baby. And so what happened? Something go wrong? ....Did someone teach that person to hate, to abuse others? So you try to appeal to the goodness of every human being and you don’t give up. You never give up on anyone."
"That’s what the struggle has been all about, to bring these competing forces together, bring human beings together, and create a sense of community, to create this sense of family, that out of the good — the good is already there. The love is there. How do you make it real?"
This is all landing in the context of federal law enforcement actions against protesters in Portland and Seattle, with its echoes of the posse at the end of the Pettis bridge. The fighters for civil rights in the 1960's embodied greatness as they used their bodies to make discrimination visible, impossible to ignore. In this moment, with a raging pandemic, an administration that does not work to help individuals avoid eviction, and a president that treats federal law enforcement as a personal army, how will we embody the call of nonviolent resistance? Imagine the conversations that will happen in twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty years. What will young, curious, loving members of the community call us as they read our stories?
Each generation, all of us alive and striving to create the compassionate, loving, inclusive communities we know we are capable of, can rise to greatness. To paraphrase Congressman Lewis: Put love into action, move our feet, appeal to the goodness of every human being, and never give up on anyone.
Sent, as always, with deep gratitude for your company as we work to make the world better for the generations walking behind us.
Liz