John
Lewis
Acceptance speech for the
Profile in Courage Lifetime Achievement Award
John F. Kennedy
Library
Caroline Kennedy,
Senator Kennedy, President Ford and Mrs. Ford, members of the Selection
Committee, Trustees of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, family and
friends.
I am humbled by this honor and very pleased to be here with
you on this special occasion marking the work and life of a courageous and
humane man of politics and letters -- President John F. Kennedy.
I feel lucky. I feel more than lucky, I feel truly blessed to
receive this award and I feel very blessed to still be here. While you honor me
today for a lifetime of achievement, I cannot forget those whose lives were cut
short: the three young civil rights workers in
Just a week ago, I participated in the 40th Anniversary
of the Freedom Rides. With 20 men and women who dared to tear down the walls of
segregation in 1961, we rode again on a greyhound bus through the
Forty years ago, I did what I thought was right when I went
on the Freedom Rides in 1961. We wanted to test a Supreme Court ruling that
banned segregation in an interstate travel facility. When the bus arrived in
Rock Hill, South Carolina, I de-boarded the bus and approached the white
waiting room. We were being watched and someone pointed to the "colored
sign." I said: "I have a right to be here on the grounds of the
Supreme Court decision in the Boynton case." Seconds later, I was attacked
and the blood of another battle in the struggle for civil rights was drawn. I
will never, ever forget that moment. I was 21. I was a sharecropper’s son from
a farm near Troy, Alabama. Yet somehow I learned that where there is injustice,
you cannot ignore the call of conscience.
On this very day ----May 21, 1961----exactly forty years
ago-- the freedom riders were trapped in the sanctuary of the First Baptist
Church in Montgomery. The day before, we had been surrounded by a sea of people
at the Montgomery Greyhound bus station -- a mob shouting and screaming, men
swinging fists, baseball bats, lead pipes -- and others throwing stones --
women swinging heavy purses -- little children clawing with their fingernails
at the faces of anyone they could reach.
It was madness. It was unbelievable. We thought we were going
to die.
Somewhere in my youth I remember hearing: "Sorrow may
endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning."
That night at First Baptist, exactly forty years ago today,
was a long, long night. If we continued the Freedom Ride, we would face arrest
or worst. And if we stopped the Rides, freedom would be denied.
An angry mob surrounded the church – throwing stones and
firebombs, overturning cars, even pounding on the walls of the sanctuary. While
we prayed and sang freedom songs, President Kennedy and the Attorney General
desperately negotiated with the Governor of Alabama – fighting for our safety.
It was our sorrow and the nation’s sorrow for that night. And
for many more nights to come, the American people -- indeed the world -- would
witness many more beatings, jailing and even the killing of non-violent
protesters daring a better America.
So on May 21, 1961, I remembered:
"Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the
morning."
By that morning, joy had come to us: President Kennedy made a
bold and courageous decision to federalize the Alabama National Guard. He also
sent in federal marshals to protect us. We would make it to Jackson
Mississippi. But we could not have done so without the help of President
Kennedy and his brother, the Attorney General.
Until joy came in the morning after the long dark sorrow of
her soul, America could not be America. The joy of morning comes not by our
will but by what I call the Spirit of History -- It sweeps us up and commands
us to answer hate and fear with love and courage.
Courage is a reflection of the heart -- It is a reflection of
something deep within the man or woman or even a child who must resist and must
defy an authority that is morally wrong. Courage makes us march on despite fear
and doubt on the road toward justice. Courage is not heroic but as necessary as
birds need wings to fly. Courage is not rooted in reason but rather Courage
comes from a divine purpose to make things right.
Marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, we weren’t
supposed to make to Montgomery in 1963.
But we did.
Arriving in Montgomery on a Greyhound Bus, we met angry mobs.
We were left for dead on the cold pavement.
But we continued our journey.
Seeking to register blacks during Freedom Summer in
Mississippi, three young
civil rights workers were taken from their jail cell left on
a dark country road and murdered in the darkness of night.
But we could not be stopped. Hundreds more students joined us
that summer.
In building a new America, we saw a vision then as we do now
of the Beloved Community. Consider those two words. "Beloved" means
not hateful, not violent, not uncaring, not unkind. And "Community"
means not separated, not polarized, not locked in struggle. Beaten and tired
but not defeated, our hopes could not be dimmed.
People often ask, how did others and I continue our
non-violent protests through the sixties with the likelihood that we would be
beaten, imprisoned or even killed. President Kennedy is my best answer to this
question. In 1963 he said "The question of race is a moral issue. It is as
old as the scripture itself."
When you stand up to injustice. When you refuse to let brute
force crush you. When you love the man who spits on you or calls you names or
puts a lighted cigarette in your hair. You come to believe that righteousness
will always prevail. Just hold on.
We -- and I mean countless thousands and even millions of
Americans -- changed old wine into new. We tore down the walls of racial
division. We inspired a generation of creative non-violent protest. And we are
still building a new America -- a Beloved America, a community at peace with
itself in Beloved Boston, Beloved Cincinnati, Beloved Washington, Beloved
Atlanta and in every Beloved city, town, village and hamlet in our nation and
in the world. Yes, our world can become a Beloved World. A world not divided
but united.
I am deeply touched by the honor you have given me today but
we cannot forget the unsung heroes who cared deeply, sacrificed much and fought
hard for a better America. For the brave men and women who stood in unmovable
lines because they were determined to vote. For those who expressed themselves
by sitting down in Montgomery, in Nashville, in Birmingham and throughout the
south, they were fighting for a just and open society. For the black and white
freedom riders who rode a bus, faced angry mobs, survived a burning bus and
slept for days on the cold floor of a jail cell, they too must be looked upon
as the founding mothers and fathers of a new America.
As we begin a new century, we must move our feet, our hands,
our hearts, our resources to build and not to tear down, to reconcile and not
to divide, to love and not to hate, to heal and not to kill. I hope and pray
that we continue our daring drive to work toward the Beloved Community. It is
still within our reach. Keep your eyes on the Prize.