Before We Mistook our Bitterness for Righteousness
The legacy of John Lewis and the civil rights movement’s lost discipline of love
This essay on the legacy of civil rights leader John Lewis comes from Brittany Talissa King, a freelance writer, and editor for a publication based in Nashville.
This past Sunday marked two years since the passing of American hero and Congressman John Lewis. Before he held office in D.C., Lewis was the budding chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee turned central leader in the civil rights movement. And as I parse through articles, photographs, and interviews commemorating him and his civil rights legacy, I cannot help but notice the drastic difference between the humility that he and other activists of his ilk have embodied, and our egocentric culture.
Something is happening in our country that I cannot quite explain.
It seems as if our nation is desperate for our constant chaos to stop spinning. We appear to be collectively fatigued by our division, yet we continuously devour one another online and off the web. Why?
Many times, the answers to our pressing questions are already recorded in history. As a millennial who knows only a post-segregated America, I’ve always been fascinated with the activists of the civil rights movement—not only because of their astonishing accomplishments but also that they achieved them nonviolently.
“Long before any sit-ins, any marches to Selma or Montgomery, any Freedom Rides—we studied civil disobedience,” Lewis explained in an interview with On Being in 2013. The nonviolent philosophy that he and others put into practice wasn’t just a moral stance but a discipline. The activists took courses every Tuesday night in a Methodist church near Fisk University. There they would train and participate in intense workshops, role-playing violent scenarios they’d face during boycotts, protests, and demonstrations. “You’d trained through the motion of someone harassing you, calling you out of your name, pulling you off your seat, someone kicking you, someone pretending to spit on you. We needed to feel like we were in the actual situation,” said Lewis. “When the time came, we were prepared.”
The intense preparation was necessary because peaceful disobedience defies human nature; for most people, our instinctual response would be to physically defend ourselves against violence. “You have to be taught the way of peace. You have to be taught the way of love,” Lewis said before detailing mental tactics employed to curb the instinct to strike back. “When someone was hitting us, you have to remember they were once an innocent baby. And you must think, ‘What happened to them along the way?’ In the religious sense, we all have a spark of a divine. We tried to appeal to the goodness of every human.”
Now, this is usually where the nonviolent conversation gets boxed. Many people classify this philosophy as either having historical superpowers, meaning we could not possibly practice it in our own time, or being hopelessly antiquated, meaning we shouldn’t practice it any longer. But Lewis challenged that notion in the interview, insisting the execution of nonviolence was not a gift or a superpower, but a rigorous practice. A primary tactic taught during the civil workshops was to always keep eye contact with one’s attacker. “If someone kicked us, spit on us, or pulled us off a lunch-counter stool—we were trained to make eye contact with them. We needed to make the impression, ‘Yes, you hit me. But I’m still human.’”
In the same interview, Lewis recalls a humorous moment with his friend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “He told me just to love the hell out of them.” Even though King was being lighthearted, Lewis knew he was not spouting a cliché, but a biblical teaching: “Do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). “Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you” (Matthew 5:44-46).
Restraint was activists’ most effective weapon, targeting their attacker’s conscience. Not only did their nonviolence refocus the public’s attention on the unjustifiable wrath of their attackers, but also nonviolence accompanied by human eye contact held the perpetrators accountable for their unwarranted war on innocent persons.
Perhaps the absence of eye contact is why it’s so easy for us to fight online. If we had to face a person and look into their eyes before tweeting, would we?
During one of Lewis’ worst attacks, he and fellow Freedom Rider James Zwerg attempted to enter a “White waiting room” at a Rock Hill Bus Terminal. Before they could get in, a group of non-uniformed Ku Klux Klanners surrounded them, beat them, and left them in a pool of blood. The local police officers asked Lewis and Zwerg if they wanted to press charges. They replied no, explaining their nonviolence philosophy, “We believe in the way of love.”
In 2009, about 50 years after that beating in Rock Hill, a man named Elwin Wilson traveled to Washington, D.C., to find Congressman Lewis. Inside the Capitol Building, he found Lewis’ office and knocked on the door. Lewis greeted his unfamiliar face while Wilson explained who he was. “I’m one of the men who beat you in Rock Hill. I want to apologize.” Wilson wept to Lewis and recounted to him how after finding God, he had realized he was wrong: “I have felt guilty every day since that moment.” Lewis embraced Wilson and said, “I forgive you. I don’t have any ill feelings, any bitterness, any malice.” And in the middle of Lewis’ D.C. office, the ex-Klansman and the civil rights revolutionary held each other, surrounded by … love. “It was a moment of grace, a moment of forgiveness and a moment of reconciliation. That’s what the movement was all about,” Lewis said. “Love has the capacity to bring peace inside of conflict and the capacity to stir up things in order to make things right.”
As I mentioned before, something is going on in this country that needs to be confronted. And perhaps it’s bigger than a political issue or social matter. It might just be the nasty condition of our hearts.
Even though I’m a millennial, I pray for the discipline of my elders in the civil rights era. To not only confront the culture with humility but to detox from my ego. We have been overlooking the methods of love for too long. Why wouldn’t we try something that has proved it works? Why do we laud MLK Jr.’s speeches but think his faith was too far-fetched? Love is not a fairy tale. Love is not a wish. Love is a practice. Love is an action. Love is restraint. Love is hard to do. On the flip side, hate is much easier to accomplish. Hate thrives on ego. Hate takes no accountability. Hate advocates for division.
Maybe these goals seem too lofty. When Dr. King authored Strength to Love in 1963, and when he gave the sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” a night before his assassination in 1968, he was communicating that a small faithful movement overcoming the United States is much stronger than the United States crushing a faithful movement. The thing about King and Lewis is they didn’t only believe love was greater than hate, they witnessed the hatred inside of their “enemies” be driven out by their faith and humbleness in God.
Every day we challenge “the other side,” the “bad guys,” to magically forfeit, surrender, and admit that truly they were horrible and the source of everything gone wrong in the world while we, on “our side,” were perfectly right all along. And how has that been working out for us? Maybe it’s time, finally, to try another approach.
“Release the need to hate, to harbor division, and the enticement of revenge,” wrote Congressman Lewis. “Hold only love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won.”
This love does not happen without an active faith in God, but that bridge has been burned in a thousand classrooms and lecture halls.
Well said. The struggle between love and fear is ongoing.