Essay: John Lewis “I Am A Witness” Exhibit

I awoke Saturday morning to the news of John Lewis’ death. 

I immediately thought of Jennie’s cousin, Wade Burns, who became friends with Congressman Lewis many decades ago when Wade lived in Atlanta and used his architectural skill in innovative ways to design affordable housing for lower-income individuals and families as well as safe, clean shelter for homeless men and women in the inner city. His efforts were applauded by John Lewis who shortly thereafter became Rep. John Lewis, an office he held from 1987 until his death.

Rep. Lewis and Wade’s friendship was such that John Lewis served as the best man at Wade’s wedding. Wade was at Rep. Lewis’ bedside in December and talked to him regularly over the past months. 

When Jennie reached out to Wade to express her sympathy, he responded with a story of going to Troy, Alabama, several years ago for the funeral of his friend’s mother, Mrs. Willie Mae Carter Lewis. Wade wrote: 

Having arrived very early, I was waiting in the empty church with only a few women and a deacon present. They were preparing food for the family. 

I was bragging about John when the deacon said, “Yes, but John is no more special than the rest of them” (them being John’s brothers and sisters).  

The deacon was making sure I knew that it was not John Lewis’s day, but his mother’s, and that John was not an only child.  Willie Mae Carter Lewis had loved all 10 of her children and Eddie, Freddie, Ethel, Ora, Sammy, Rosa, Grant, Adolph and William were all as extraordinary in their humanity as was John.

Given what we know about John Lewis’ character, his lifetime of courageous conviction, his unwavering adherence to nonviolent social change that led him to lay his life on the line on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday as down payment for ransoming the Beloved Society from the death grip of racism, that's quite a statement the deacon made that John was but one in ten, a tithe of a whole family of siblings who shared his spine, conscience, faith, and humility.   

As I read through the plaudits posted by national leaders over the weekend, Former Vice-President Joe Biden eulogized Rep. Lewis as “truly one-of-a-kind, a moral compass who always knew where to point us and which direction to march. We are made in the image of God, and then there is John Lewis.”

That last sentence, paired with the deacon’s words, gave me pause to wonder.  We’re all created in the image of God... and then there are the John Lewises of the world through whom the imago dei-- the image of God-- shimmers.  

And John was no more special than the rest of Eddie and Willie Mae’s children?  Really, Deacon?  

An authorized biography of Rep. Lewis is forthcoming. The book, “His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope” is written by Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Jon Meacham. Over the weekend, Meacham was asked about John Lewis.  He responded:

He is a biblical figure. He believed in the efficacy and the possibility of bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth. And it’s a remarkably radical and optimistic vision of life.  It ‘s not one that is widely shared in American history. Most religious folks through the years from Puritan times forward have believed that peace and justice really only existed on the other side of the grave.  John Lewis believed the opposite.  He believed that if we got our hearts and minds in the right place, if we actually acted on what so many Christians say they believe but so rarely actually put into action that we could in fact create that world where “justice comes down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.”  And for him it wasn’t rhetoric, it wasn’t a sermon, it was reality. He believed fundamentally in what he and Dr. King called the Beloved Community but which is really the kingdom of heaven.  It’s the reign of God’s justice.  Some secular folks may think this is gauzy or sentimental. But he was on that bridge.  He was on those buses (for the Freedom Rides).  He was in that house chamber because of the gospel and never wavered from that faith. And I think one of the most important lessons for today is that there are so many people who look a lot like me who say they are religious, who say they follow the Lord as it has come down to us in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek New Testament, and yet manage to sort of overlook the Sermon on the Mount....  One of the things the Congressman believed to the very end was that there is a power to a religious vision of the world that can open our hearts as opposed to leading us to clench our fists.”

I suspect Jennie’s cousin will be attending his Best Man’s funeral in the days ahead.  That’s quite a man to have as your Best Man.  

That’s quite a brother, Eddie, Freddie, Ethel, Ora, Sammy, Rosa, Grant, Adolph and William.

That’s quite a son you raised, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis.

May he now be raised up with you into God’s kingdom of Light and Life.