Best of - John Lewis: The Spirit of History

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Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 19 July 2020

⏱️ 49 minutes

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Summary

In honor of Congressman John Lewis, who died of pancreatic cancer on July 17th, we are re-posting this episode. It was originally published in January, 2020. Lewis spent his whole life trying to get our nation to live up to its own ideals. He maintained faith and optimism about the future, and was inspired by the new generation of activists for racial justice. He was the son of a sharecropper, and tells the story here of how he grew up to become a legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a 17-term Congressman from the state of Georgia. He describes his political and spiritual awakenings, and recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, despite the many beatings and arrests he endured -- at lunch counter sit-ins and during the march from Selma to Montgomery. You'll hear archival sound from those events as well, and an excerpt of John Lewis speaking at the March on Washington when he was just 23 years old. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2020

Transcript

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0:00.0	This past weekend, America lost one of the great ones.
0:05.0	John Lewis spent his whole life trying to get our nation to live up to its own ideals,
0:12.0	as a civil rights leader and a congressman, as a patriot who maintained
0:16.5	faith and optimism about the future.
0:20.2	As his health began to fail him, John Lewis felt uplifted by seeing young people pick up his
0:26.0	baton and become activists in the Black Lives Matter movement.
0:30.9	And on his very last day before pancreatic cancer took his life, he co-wrote a letter with a
0:37.7	congressional colleague to get more money for civics Education in our schools.
0:44.0	John Lewis was an honored member of the Academy of Achievement
0:48.0	and he was a guest on this podcast in January of 2020. We are reposting the episode today in his memory.
0:57.0	When I was growing up my mother and father and family members said don't get in trouble. Don't get in the way.
1:08.0	I got in trouble. I got in trouble.
1:13.0	in the way.
1:14.0	It was necessary trouble.
1:16.0	For John Lewis, trouble meant sitting at a lunch counter designated for whites only.
1:22.0	It meant leading a peaceful march over a bridge and getting
1:26.2	brutally beaten for it. It meant serving as chairman of the student nonviolent
1:31.6	coordinating committee. It meant going to jail. of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
1:33.0	It meant going to jail 40 times for believing
1:37.5	that America should not be segregated
1:40.0	and that African Americans ought to be able to vote.
1:44.0	It meant helping to organize the 1963 March on Washington
	...

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