President Barack Obama, Congressman John Lewis, and President George W. Bush on the Edmund Pettus Bridge during commemoration ceremonies on March 8, 2015.
John Lewis is a personal hero of mine, having risked (and very nearly sacrificed) his life so that other lives could be better. Esquire ran an article in which Lewis speaks on a subject he knows all too well – the dangers inherent in men like Donald Trump:
“When I see the people that react to Donald Trump’s words at those rallies, I see the same look in their eyes that I saw [in the eyes of Sheriff Clark and his posse]—a look that says, ‘you’re not a part of us, you’re not a part of the American family, you come from someplace else.’ When Trump talks about building a wall, to lock certain individuals out, people rallied. They screamed and yelled. It reminded me of some of the rallies that I saw on television for [infamous racist/segregationist Alabama governor] George Wallace during the ’60s. It makes me somewhat sad. I thought for many, many years that our country had become much more hopeful, much more optimistic, and we had come to a place where we saw unbelievable changes. I’ve said over and over again that we have witnessed what I like to call a nonviolent revolution in America during the last 50 years, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. I think the Trump campaign is trying to take us back to another place, another time, and we’ve come so far, made so much progress, I don’t think we can afford to go back…”
The entire article (which includes excerpts from Lewis’ graphic novel) is worth a read. In fact, it should be required reading for every school in America, as well as a certain incoming administration.
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