‘Where Did the Courage Come From?’

Word came on Sunday that Congressman John Lewis of Georgia is gravely ill. The diagnosis: Pancreatic cancer, Stage 4.

His office told reporters, in Mr. Lewis’ own words, that he intends to fight back and plans to lick this latest foe. This man of great strength, great courage, and great heart has fought many fights, and most often he has triumphed.

John Lewis has been a member of Congress for 32 years. Elected 17 times. Health permitting, he would be elected that many more. For those who remember the path he has walked (and we should all remember) you know he is also as connected to Nashville as to Atlanta and Georgia’s 5th District.

It was to Nashville he came to college and seminary, at Fisk and American Baptist. It was here that this man of modest height grew tall in prestige. Here, when he was 20, he was arrested and jailed with other peaceful but determined young people - from Tennessee State University, American Baptist and Fisk - for daring to integrate lunch counters on Church Street.

That’s when they all soared into history.

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If you’ve ever met John Lewis, this man who paired a kind and knowing smile with the preacher’s thunder, you did not forget him. I was blessed to meet him three times, once in Atlanta (a chance encounter in a shopping mall) and twice more in two private homes in Nashville:

First. I was walking through the Lenox Mall in Buckhead when I spotted the congressman talking with two other men. I couldn’t resist telling him I was from Nashville, how much we appreciate him and his story here. He shook my hand, and I remember he described Nashville as “the beloved city.” That expression, from the Bible, was not original with Mr. Lewis but he said it a lot about Nashville. So formative was his time here as a young man.

Second. In November of 1998, Pam and Phil Pfeffer hosted a remarkable evening reception for the author David Halberstam on the publication of his book The Children and to honor many of the people the book was about. (The Children is now the primary reference for understanding how all those young people had helped to ignite the Movement in 1960s – the courage it took, the verbal and physical abuse they withstood to bring about justice, and the long-term examples they set.)

Pfeffer was then president of Halberstam’s publisher Random House. I caught up with Phil this morning, and he reminded me that reception had been the first time so many of the original participants had re-convened in Nashville since the Sixties. To this day, on my own bookshelf, is my copy of The Children. In its front pages are the autographs of Congressman Lewis, Halberstam, Hank Thomas, Gloria Johnson-Powell, George Barrett, Dr. C.T. Vivian, the Rev. Jim Lawson, and of John Seigenthaler, all of whom were there that night. (This morning, as I scanned their signatures and sentiments, I reflected on how so many of these heroes of the Movement are now gone.)

Third. Fourteen years later, at Seigenthaler’s home in Whitworth, came another special evening. Congressman Lewis had returned to Nashville that morning for a large midday tribute event honoring Seigenthaler, then 81 years old. The retired editor/publisher, in turn, had invited several dozen other friends to his home, mostly from the newspaper days, at the end of that day to meet Mr. Lewis.

It was a festive reunion, but at a point in the evening Seigenthaler called for silence, said he was going to ask Rep. Lewis to say a few words, and then as our host he would open a brief period of Q&A. The congressman spoke with great eloquence and strong feeling of the days of sit-ins, arrests, and the rough stuff. He connected all that to our present day, and how the struggle must continue - racial discrimination being maybe less visible now, he said, but it’s still insidious.

Then followed a half-dozen questions from others, but I only remember one. It was Seigenthaler who asked it, and it stilled the room:

“John Lewis, where did the courage come from?”

This black man from Georgia, who in his youth had been beaten and bloodied, who had persevered and rose into history, gave his answer. It reminded me of Halberstam’s own words about him in The Children:

“Jim Lawson had prepared them well,” David wrote. “He had taught them what to expect. Most important of all, they had each other. There was strength not so much in their numbers, although that helped, but in their shared belief. Jail was not crushing; it was, (Lewis) thought to his amazement, liberating.”

o

God bless John Lewis.

Our best wishes, deepest respect, and much love from your Beloved City.