Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change

by John Lewis

Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society. The work of love, peace, and justice will always be necessary, until their realism and their imperative takes hold of our imagination, crowds out any dream of hatred or revenge, and fills up our existence with their power.

What is the purpose of a nation if not to empower human beings to live better together than they could individually? When government fails to meet the basic needs of humanity for food, shelter, clothing, and even more important—the room to grow and evolve—the people will begin to rely on one another, to pool their resources and rise above the artificial limitations of tradition or law. Each of us has something significant to contribute to society be it physical, material, intellectual, emotional, or spiritual.

Patience is a guiding light in all the work of change. It is an aspect of the commitment people make to finish what they start. Once you have begun the work involved in creating change, moving an idea forward step-by-step, doing all that is within your power, and understanding that there will be forces beyond your control that may support you or block you is central to the change you seek. There is a process to everything. You must follow certain steps, and each one of those steps must be patiently, persistently, and thoroughly implemented to receive the best outcome. Even setbacks can serve a vital purpose to completing your goal. Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once. In the movement, we didn’t know how history would play itself out. When we were getting arrested and waiting in jail or standing in unmovable lines on the courthouse steps, we didn’t know what would happen, but we knew it had to happen. Use the words of the movement to pace yourself. We used to say that ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit ...

“It’s the action, not the fruit of the action, that’s important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there’ll be any fruit. But that doesn’t mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result.” —MOHANDAS GANDHI

“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.” —MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

By standing in our truth, we affirmed our value and asserted our inalienable right to exist. By marching en masse we were saying: We are not invisible. We are unmistakably real. We are not second-class citizens, but equal and open to all human experience. We do not accept or deserve disdain or abuse. We are human beings, not shuffling or bent, but erect, proud, and standing tall. We are citizens of this nation who have a right to be heard and have a right to fully participate. We were saying we would not be intimidated anymore. We are different, but we are equal.

Race was a false limit, meant to impede coalition between groups that together could stand up to and defeat the violators of human dignity.

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.” —MOTHER TERESA

All of our struggles here are based on one erroneous, pervasive, and persistent belief that we are somehow separated from the divine, that some of us have more light than others, therefore making them more deserving than others.