Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change

by John Lewis

Once the heart is softened, shifts in social norms are seen as logical and rational.

This need to humanize an issue is critical to every movement. In activism, try to aim your most powerful action at the emotional resistance held in the heart, the beliefs that lead people to view a human problem as though it were alien.

To me there is no such thing as an illegal human being, but my background makes me acutely aware of the devastating consequences rounding up and deporting millions of immigrants would have on our society, especially since this nation has done it before.

But when the stock market crashed in 1929, nativist feelings began to surge to the forefront. Racist ideas took hold and Mexicans were forcibly rounded up and deported back to their country to “free up” opportunities for those who had been born here. A half million to two million Mexicans were sent back south of the border. Most of those who were rounded up were actually naturalized American citizens, and some had even been born in this country. They were all deported to Mexico, without regard to their citizenship status.

Sensitization is one of the key benefits of protest. It makes people aware that there is a problem that requires the attention of our democracy.

However, in its modern form, Rousseau asserts that in order for government to exist at all, there is an implied agreement between the people and its government. The people agree to give up a part of their free will—the right to do as they please without rules. And under this unspoken contract, people determine that for the sake of order and peace, they will give up a part of their freedom and decide to follow the rules and regulations of government. They elect people to represent them in the processes of government so that they have a voice in the development of these rules, and that is a fundamental basis of any government, especially a democracy.

The only reason unjust systems exist is that the masses of people silently give their consent and believe these systems are necessary—

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.

I am describing these events to advise you that taking action has its price.

Martin Luther King Jr.’s words were the blue sky this restless bird needed to fly. They were the candle illuminating a darkness threatening to swallow us all up, and they lit a path to a clearing where we could stand up and be the men and women we were born to be.

Nonviolence is confrontational.

The way of peace and nonviolence is not the way of the weak. It takes courage to face the truth of your condition or the condition of our society. It takes courage to admit that we are not living up to our ideals of freedom and justice as a people.

Mother Pollard, who found her only peace inside the turmoil of struggle. Why? Because she was finally able to take some steps to correct the wrong she had been required to participate in almost her entire life.

I had long before accepted that I might die in a protest, and when I saw those troopers, I realized my time might have come to an end. But that was all right with me because I knew deep within my heart that I was living the life I was meant to lead, and I was willing to follow that calling wherever it took me.

I can say I have witnessed the advent of greater peace in our society, but that is in comparison to all the turmoil I have seen. I wanted to find a moment in contemporary history that others with different experiences might be able to point to, a place where the tension and strife in our society had ceased, even temporarily. I looked for one moment that we may all remember, a moment that expands beyond politics or partisanship, but expressed the ability of a nation to heal. For me, the nomination of Barack Obama as a candidate for president and his inauguration in Washington represents a brief glimpse at the power and potential of peace.

In 1961, thirteen original Freedom Riders, seven blacks and six whites, left Washington, D.C., traveling on a Greyhound to New Orleans. We sat in an integrated fashion on the bus to test a Supreme Court ruling that rendered segregation in interstate transportation illegal. Although this new law had been passed, states in the Deep South continued racially discriminating, forcing blacks to sit in the back of the bus and to surrender their seats to standing whites. Most bus stations still posted white waiting and colored waiting signs. Our plan was to challenge this injustice. Typically when a train or bus traveling south from New York City, for example, would get below the Mason Dixon line, the black passengers would be asked to get up from their seats and move to the back of the bus. Our plan was for black and white Freedom Riders to simply remain seated next to each other. And when we got off the bus and entered the stations, white riders would use restrooms marked colored and black riders would use restrooms and facilities marked white. It was that simple, but I knew the farther South we traveled, the more likely we would be to run into violence. No matter how bad the beatings were we would not physically fight back. Ours was a nonviolent mission. We knew it was dangerous, and all of us wrote out our last requests before we boarded the bus in case we did not return. On the Freedom Ride, I was prepared to die.

Instantly, fists were coming from everywhere punching me in the face. I was knocked to the floor and repeatedly kicked in my sides. Albert and I were left in a pool of blood. Some police officers approached us, asking if we wanted to press charges against the men who had so savagely beaten us, and we said no. They were flabbergasted. They could not believe it or understand why. We simply told them that ours was not a struggle against individuals. It was a struggle against a system of injustice. We got back on the bus and kept pressing on.

You may easily say that self-love is another evident spiritual derivative of what we accomplished. Without a doubt, that is true, the capacity to stand up at times when we would have once been afraid was deeply empowering. To be able to count ourselves among the few willing to die for a just cause was ennobling. There is no question that reviving our own sense of self-worth was perhaps a subconscious draw for every participant in the movement.

Diffusing the fury of violence by obstructing and redirecting the intention of an attacker is itself an act of love.

Having compassion for your attacker means you harbor no malice and seek no retribution for the wrong that has been done.

This brings to mind the one and only attacker, of the forty times I was arrested and jailed, who apologized to me for his actions. Almost forty-eight years after that now famous Freedom Ride stop in Rock Hill, South Carolina that left Albert Bigelow and me so badly bruised and bloodied, Elwin Wilson, one of our attackers, wanted to come to meet me.

Wilson had apologized to other Freedom Riders during ceremonies honoring them in South Carolina and had mentioned his wish to find the men he had beaten up that day in Rock Hill. I welcomed him to Washington and as we sat, Wilson looked deep into my eyes, searching my expression, and said he was the person who had beaten me in Rock Hill in May of 1961. He said, “I am sorry about what I did that day. Will you forgive me?” Without a moment of hesitation, I looked back at him and said, “I accept your apology.” The man who had physically and verbally assaulted me was now seeking my approval. This was a great testament to the power of love to overcome hatred.

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

Once hostilities cease, warring parties begin the work of living together, determining how to resolve their differences—even the problems that instigated the conflict in the first place.

Nonviolent action stands on the truth of the unity of all humankind, and it sees the offending party as a brother or sister who has gone wrong. Its participants exercise their right to noncooperation with unjust law or incorrect principles, but they always remember the humanity of the offender, knowing that eventually balance will be restored and the two will have to find a way to come together again.

The work of love left no scars, no obscuring of what side was right and what side was wrong.

Roots of love nurtured by a river of faith are a sure protection against many dangers, even the power of military might. And I say this not as an idealist who speaks in poetry and platitudes, but as a realist who has faced an army of weapons drawn against me with love as my only defense.