Keeping the Faith: Civil Rights and the Baby Boom
An Interview with Congressman John Lewis

Exclusive to LIFE's World Wide Web site by Seth Goddard.

Born the son of sharecroppers in 1940, John Lewis was first elected to the House of Representatives (D-GA) in 1986 after serving for four years on the Atlanta city council. His work in the early and mid '60s as a civil rights leader and Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) nearly cost him his life at the hands of angry white mobs and club wielding state troopers. At the age of 23, he was recognized as one the six primary leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and was an organizer and a keynote speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, D.C. The following year he coordinated voter registration efforts during the Mississippi Summer Project. In 1965, he led marchers, many of them baby boomers, into what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," one of the most dramatic nonviolent protests of the Movement.

SG: From your perspective, both as the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and as a congressman, was there something that was different about the baby boom generation--their ability to accept the civil rights cause more so than their parents?
JL: This generation came into being at a time when they saw, we saw, the world before us change. We saw people moving towards freedom and independence. We saw people moving towards a more open society. There were things that many people in the previous generation just sort of accepted and this generation said, No. This generation was deeply inspired, moved, and touched by the vision of Martin Luther King Jr., by the vision of John F. Kennedy. The generation before had been influenced by parents and grandparents and other relatives who had been touched by the war. This generation wanted to be part of an effort to put an end to violence and to war and to racism and to division in our society.

SG: Have the boomers held on to the vision?
JL: I think this generation has held to this vision-- the idea of a beloved community, the idea of an open society, the idea of a truly interracial democracy in America. It is encouraging that children, and I guess in some cases their grandchildren, are to be part of this effort to continue this vision, to continue the dream for a better society.

SG: There were certainly a lot of baby boomers with their children at the Million Man March. How was the march different from those of the '60's?
JL: Well, this march was altogether different from the March [on Washington] that my generation and others participated in more than 30 years ago in 1963, and efforts that people participated in 1964 during the Mississippi Summer Project. We had hundreds and thousands of young people, black and white, come to Mississippi, and the Selma March in 1965, 31 years ago. [The Movement in the '60's] was more inclusive. It was blacks and whites, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. It was what we called, during that period, "a circle of trust," a band of brothers and sisters working and building together, attempting to build a beloved community, to build an interracial democracy. I think some of the young people that participated in the Million Man March, some of the young black men and some not so young, felt that the previous effort sort of passed them bye and this was their opportunity to amend--what Minister Farrakhan and some others are calling it--to atone. I hear people all the time, blacks and whites saying, "Oh, I wish I had been born a little earlier. I wish I had an opportunity to participate in the March on Washington in '63. I wish I had an opportunity to go to Selma, to be in Mississippi in '64. I was too young."

SG: For you, what has been the lasting sense from those marches?
JL: [The marches] represented America at her best. You had people, especially the very young, who really believed in the goodness of the country and wanting to make it real for everybody. There was the sense that we were one people, that we were one community, one family, the American family, that we were all in this thing together and that we had an obligation. We had a mission to do what we could to make things better for all humankind. People believed that. It was not a show. It was not caught up in the political whim of the day. There was a deep and abiding sense that we had to put our bodies on the line for what was right. It was like a holy crusade. People were not trying to score political points. They were just trying to make things better, make things right for all America.

SG: It is interesting that you say it was like a crusade. I'm actually looking at an image of you and fellow activist Hosea Williams leading a line of demonstrators through Selma on your way to the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It is described as a "bloody clash with State Troopers."
JL: Oh yeah, I remember that day very well. It was 31 years ago. The day became known as "Bloody Sunday." We had to find a way to dramatize to the nation and to the world that people wanted to participate in the democratic process. It was something that we really felt and believed. On that day we thought that we would be arrested and jailed. We had no idea that we would be beat. I remember we left that little church, Brown Chapel, walked through the streets of Selma, got to the foot of the bridge. We were walking in twos when we came over the apex of the bridge and saw a sea of blue. It was the Alabama state troopers. I still thought we would be arrested and jailed, and we continued to walk. We came within hearing distance of the state troopers, and this guy, who was a major, said: "I'm Major John Cloud of the Alabama state troopers. I give you three minutes to disperse and go back to your church. This is an unlawful march. It will not be allowed to continue." In less than a minute and a half he said: "Troopers advance," and they came towards us, beating us with night sticks, bull whips. Sheriff Clark and his posse started trampling us with horses and they used the tear gas. But I think it was necessary for us to be there, to participate in that effort. Some of us were beaten and some people seriously hurt. Some of us lost a little blood, but it was necessary in order to gain the right to vote, to make it possible for all Americans to participate in the democratic process. (The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed five months later.)

SG: The look of hope that the marchers have on their faces in this photo, the hope that was such an integral part of the movement, has it changed?
JL: It has changed and it's so discouraging to me sometimes.

SG: Where did the hope go?
JL: I tell ya, we were [so hopeful]. My generation and many of the children--I was 25 but these kids were like 14, 15, and in some cases they were younger--they were so hopeful. They were so optimistic. They would come to the church and they would sing songs of hope. They would march and be smiling as they were being put on a paddy wagon going to jail. I think--I really believe this--some of that sense of hope died and some of it was destroyed and some of it just disappeared with the assassinations of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Dr. King. I had friends and close buddies in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference], and in the movement, who just sort of dropped out, just almost gave up because they couldn't take what had happened to some of the people we had looked up to. And then I think, we don't have that same sense of what I call moral urgency. There are different battles. It's a different period and it's not as simple. We saw those [public] signs [of segregation] and they were very visible, and today many of the signs are somewhat invisible. We had a different leadership. I think too many of us in the late '60s, the '70s, the '80s, and even during this period, got caught up in getting my piece of the pie, getting my piece of the action. We've become too concerned about mine, mine, mine, rather than being concerned about all of us. We're all in this thing together.

SG: Can we just chalk up this selfish attitude to getting older and having to pay bills?
JL: As you get older, you have certain responsibilities--you get married, you get a family, you have to pay a mortgage, you have to be responsible for you're kid's education--but I think in this rush to get my piece of the pie, my piece of the action, we lost that sense of what I like to call a moral authority. We start turning inward and being more concerned about my own situation and my own predicament and my own circumstances. Dr. King used to speak a great deal about that. In order to become a true participant in the movement, you sort of forget about your own circumstances. You lose yourself and become involved in the circumstances and predicaments of others. You see things in terms of the common good.

SG: How do others of your generation see you?
JL: Some would say, "Well, he's been consistent, he's kept his eyes on the prize." Some would say, "You know, he's sort of crazy. How long is he going to continue to do this? Why is he doing it?" And people sometimes ask me, "Aren't you frustrated? Don't you get tired? Why do you keep banging your head against a wall? How can you work in that environment?" You just don't give up. You keep the faith. You be hopeful and you tell yourself over and over again, "You're not going to become bitter, you're not going to become hostile." I used to say to people in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, people in the movement, and as I say to my own staff and colleagues in the Congress today: "Pace yourself, pace yourself. Don't get in a hurry." The problems we are facing in the American society are not problems that were created yesterday. They were not created overnight and they're not going to be solved in the matter of a few days or a few weeks or a few months or maybe a few years. But you have to take the long hard look and do what you can do, but do something. Be involved.

SG: You mentioned the need to pace yourself and to avoid becoming bitter. Part of the movement did become bitter.
JL: It was not positive. People started turning on each other. It's exactly what happened to my own organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and to a significant degree, to other parts of the movement. You had a situation where people said, "We tried that, and people are not getting registered, things are not changing in a significant degree." I think people came down [to the South], some people, blacks and whites, and said, "We'll work for you, we'll work for a semester, we'll work for a summer," and they didn't see meaningful major changes, and they became frustrated. Some people became hostile and bitter and disillusioned. Even in SNCC, we came to that point where some people started saying: "Well maybe all of the white people should leave and there should only be blacks in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Maybe we should drop nonviolence." And people started wanting different things different ways.

SG: I understand that at that point you were forced out.
JL: That's right. I was reelected and then de-elected in one evening. It was like the coups that take place in some of these countries.

SG: How do you compare your youthful years with the experiences of adolescents today? What, as parents, should the baby boomers focus on?
JL: I think parents need to spend more time listening to the children, to the young people, encouraging young people to get involved in the big global picture. In my own case, sometimes I feel that I didn't have a childhood. I feel like I was forced to grow up overnight. I think a lot of young people that came through that period did grow up overnight. We were forced to grow up. Some people literally grew up on lunch counter stools. Some people grew up on a march. They had to grow up. Overnight they had to become adults. You're arrested, you're going to jail, you're the spokesperson, you have to organize, you have to conduct a nonviolent workshop. So your experience becomes much larger than your years, in a sense, because you have to take on certain responsibilities and obligations. And this may not be the fair thing to do, but I see young people today, 16, 17, 18, 19 years old, just sort of wasting away. I'm not going to put down their music and their dress and all of that but to me, on one hand, it seems like a big waste. Many young people, my age at the time and many much younger, were involved in some creative way by helping to make the society different and better.

I think young people today can learn from another generation. I think even people studying [civil rights]. If they read about what happened, if they watch Eyes on the Prize, I think they can learn. The kids were involved in something much higher. The crime rate, all of the studies, all of the reports will show, that in the African-American community, where there was a strong nonviolent movement, the crime rate went down. Doctors and nurses and emergency workers at hospitals can tell you that in the late '50s and the '60s, when there was a strong nonviolent campaign going on in Montgomery or Birmingham or Selma, there were few emergency calls, there were few people being shot on a Friday night or being cut on a Saturday night.

I've said to young people: "You're too quiet, you're just too quiet. You need to make some noise, you need to agitate in a nonviolent and creative fashion." What this Congress is proposing to do to education is a threat to many of our children, to many young people at all levels, really. Young people in this country, students in elementary school, high school, at the college level, should organize in mass and say to the Congress that we will not take it if you propose to cut education by millions and billions of dollars. This is our future. There should be a major campaign to say: "Invest in our future, invest in education." Sometimes I wish I was a student again. I see what is happening in Washington today. It is just unthinkable.

SG: You mentioned that you talk with students.
JL: The young people, they want to know. Sometimes I take photographs or show them a little video, but for the most part I just tell the story about seeing signs saying White Waiting, Colored Waiting, White Men, Colored Men, White Women, Colored Women. I tell them what it was like in Atlanta, in Montgomery or in Birmingham during the '50s and during the '60s, what it was like to be arrested and beaten or to go to jail for a time, what it was like to work with Martin Luther King, Jr., or to be stuck with an electric cattle prodder, or for a police officer like Bull Connor in Birmingham to call his police away and let an angry mob beat you up at a bus station.

Many of these young people, even young people here in the South, cannot believe it. They know very little about this contemporary history. So when I go to speak to a group of young black and white students at an elementary school or high school, they want to know more. What was it like working with Martin Luther King, Jr.? What was it like going on the Freedom Ride? What did you do when someone poured cold water on you or spilled a hot cup of coffee on you or tried to fumigate you in a store? Why didn't you strike back? What does it mean to be nonviolent? Why didn't you hit back? In the process, you try to educate these young people, inform these young people, but also say to them that another generation of young people, another generation of students, made a difference, and you too can make a difference. I tell them that I grew up very very poor in rural Alabama on a farm, but I was encouraged by my mother and father to stay in school, to get an education, and I didn't get involved in drugs and violence and gangs. I say you can be what you want to be. You must not give up. You must not give in. You must not get lost in a sea of despair. Try to provide some sense of hope. I was beaten. I was arrested and jailed and all of that, but I don't hate anybody. I don't hold any malice and you must not.

SG: Did you think in 1965, when the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, that you would become a congressman?
JL: No, no, no. I thought people in Selma and parts of Alabama and 'round the south and in the nation would become registered voters. My own mother and my own father could not even register to vote at the time. They were living in rural Alabama. School teachers of mine--people who had taught me in high school and college--could not. If someone had told me then that one day I would be in the Congress I would have said, "You're crazy. You're out of your mind." I didn't have any idea that one day I would be elected to anything. That was far, far removed from my mind. It was not even a dream.

END OF INTERVIEW