John Lewis died five years ago today. I mourn not just his passing but the Sisyphean failure of his life’s work.
American today is little changed from Bloody Sunday when Lewis’ skull was cracked by an Alabama State Trooper wielding a billy club as Lewis led the march across the Edmund Petters Bridge. The day he died from pancreatic cancer just a few years ago, American streets were full of marchers protesting the public strangulation of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis. Little has changed in the sixty years since Bloody Sunday.
The shocking television coverage of the beatings at the bridge in Selma prompted passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In 2013, that law was eviscerated by the Supreme Court in the 5-4 Shelby County v. Holder decision. As soon as the heart of the act was invalidated, Texas announced that a voter identification law that had been blocked would go into effect immediately. Other states followed soon, with thousands of voters thrown off registration roles for specious reasons, hundreds of polling places in minority neighborhoods closed, and voting districts further gerrymandered to make sure the poor, black, and Hispanic who do manage to vote have as little say as possible in our government.
Going back in time to earlier in Lewis’ storied career, on the day in 1963 when the Reverend Martin Luther King told the world of his dream during the March on Washington, Lewis spoke on the same program about people trapped working for starvation wages. In 2023, just 60 years later, black families earn about $67 for every $100 white families earn. How can that be if job opportunities for qualified candidates are equal? If education is equally provided so qualified candidates can be developed? The facts show that equality of economic opportunity exists on paper but does not exist in the reality of our society.
John Lewis lived a noble life of sacrifice and purpose. But zoning laws still prevent black children from receiving equal educations while protecting white property values against perceived racial undermining. Employment discrimination may be illegal, but it is common practice reinforced by algorithms in addition to humans. The right to vote is not the same thing as the ability to vote—and votes not cast can’t be counted.
John Lewis fought the good fight for eighty years. Sadly, there is little to show for it in America today.
Adapted from The Journal of My Seventieth Year
And getting worse every day. :(