Op-Ed: Remembering Rep. John Lewis And The Rev. C.T. Vivian

From Rockland County Legislator Toney L. Earl

I truly feel as though I have lost members of my own family with the passing of Congressman John Lewis and the Rev. C.T. Vivian. I am particularly saddened by the loss of Rep. Lewis because until the day he died, he remained a vital, inspiring leader in the struggle to ensure that all people are treated equally.

Rep. Lewis, age 80, and Rev. Vivian, age 95, both died Friday. Both worked alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for racial equality in the 1960s. Both also chose peaceful protest to successfully garner support for their goals while frequently enduring severe beatings and numerous arrests.

Rep. Lewis and Rev. Vivian conducted sit-downs to protest segregated lunch counter seating and both were members of the Freedom Riders, blacks and whites who challenged segregated buses, bus terminals and other public facilities.

These men gave of themselves in pursuit of a better America. They were brutally beaten, spat on, cursed, arrested, but they never gave into violence, always choosing to take the high road.

So much was accomplished thanks to their efforts and the efforts of others, including the integration of public transportation, restaurants and stores; the implementation of the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act. We have come so far, but we still have work to do. We know that even today, too many African Americans and others don’t have access to adequate health care, to proper educational opportunities or to jobs that pay enough to raise a family that can thrive, not just get by.

The contributions of Congressman Lewis and Rev. Vivian will forever reverberate. We can continue the work that they were so engaged in by keeping the issues front and center, by demanding change, and by voting to get those changes put in place.

Rep. John Robert Lewis

• Son of sharecroppers who bought their own farm in Alabama.
• Graduated from what is now known as American Baptist College, a seminary.
• A Freedom Rider.
• At age 23, a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. offered his “I Have A Dream” speech
• At age 25, helped lead a voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where peaceful marchers were viciously clubbed and beaten by police and attacked by dogs and tear gas. Lewis had his skull fractured.
• Images from the attack, which became known as Bloody Sunday, brought support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
• Graduated from Fisk University in 1967 with a bachelor’s in religion and philosophy.
• Elected to Atlanta City Council in 1981
• Rep. Lewis was a Congressman representing Georgia for more than 30 years, first elected in 1986.
• In 2011, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from America’s first black president, Barack Obama.
• In 2016, led a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives in an attempt to bring attention and force Congress to address gun violence after a mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.
• Protested the elections of President George W. Bush and Donald Trump, which he believed were not legitimate, by boycotting their inaugurations in 2001 and 2017, respectively.

Rev. Cordy Tindell ‘C.T.’ Vivian

• Baptist Minister
• Attended Western Illinois University.
• Graduated from what is now known as American Baptist College, a seminary.
• Part of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s inner advisory circle.
• A founder of the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, an affiliate of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, one of the key players in the Civil Rights Movement.
• National Director of some 85 local affiliate chapters of the SCLC in early to mid-1960s.
• A Freedom Rider
• Like Lewis, Rev. Vivian endured numerous bloody beatings.
• Founder of several organizations devoted to nurturing better race relations in the workplace and to monitoring hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan.
• Created a program to help children who were kicked out of school for protesting racism prepare for college.
• Program later used as a model for the U.S. Education Department’s Upward Bound program to improve graduation rates for students in underserved communities.
• In 2013, awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama.

Sources for bios: Civil Rights Digital Library; The Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University; U.S. House of Representatives; numerous news articles.