Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change

by John Lewis

Activists must take into account Sir Isaac Newton’s third law of motion, or you might call it a law of action. Newton says that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. That means that when activists take a stand, they must accurately anticipate the response to their action. This is one of the most important lessons you can learn from the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. We were successful in creating massive change in our society, but we did not fully comprehend the nature of the opposition. They were just as insistent as we were. As civil rights activists began to believe they had won some immutable victories and relaxed their efforts, the conservatives, many supporting the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, began engaging in strategies similar to our own.