E-mail a friendRep. John Lewis
airdate August 28, 2008
Georgia Rep. John Lewis is recognized as one of the "Big Six" civil rights movement leaders. As a student, he organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters. He also helmed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The son of sharecroppers, the Alabama native was educated at Nashville's Fisk University and American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was on the Atlanta City Council before being elected to the U.S. House in '86. Lewis is the last surviving speaker from the '63 March on Washington.
Georgia representative tells Tavis why he switched his support from Sen. Clinton to Sen. Obama. (1:46)
Full interview. (7:30)
Rep. John Lewis
Tavis: Earlier I sat down with Georgia congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis, who 45 years ago today spoke at the March on Washington.
Congressman Lewis, good to have you back on again.
Rep. John Lewis: It's good to be here, brother. Thank you for having me.
Tavis: I'm glad to have you here. I want to talk about 45 years ago today in just a moment. First, though, what do you make of the fact that 45 years after "I Have a Dream," your party has a Democratic nominee who happens to be an African-American?
Lewis: First of all, I must tell you, it is unreal. Just unbelievable. But it's happened, and we must embrace it. It is a significant step down a very, very long road to make the dream of Dr. King a living reality. It's having to fulfill that dream. It is not finished, but it's saying that the dream never died. The hopes, the aspirations, the longings, the suffering, the marches, the beatings, the dying, the killing are all embraced, all wrapped up in what has happened here in Denver.
Tavis: We all know, because we've read the story and seen the news reports about it. You started out as a supporter of your friend Hillary Clinton, who gave a wonderful speech here this week. At a certain point, you made a decision to switch to Barack Obama, saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, that you wanted to be on the right side of history given your integral role in African-American and American history.
Tell me about that decision in retrospect, how difficult it was. Just tell me something about that moment and about that decision.
Lewis: Well, I've known President Clinton for a long time, and I've known Senator Hillary Clinton. President Clinton had been like a brother. He walked up to me and said, "John, I love you so much," and long before he became president. And I would say, "I love you." And when he became president I would say, "I love you too, Mr. President."
Hillary, she's just a smart, unbelievable woman who committed herself to having children, the most vulnerable element in our society, and that endeared me toward her. And so early on I endorsed Hillary Clinton, and along the way I felt more and more, as I saw this movement, this crusade, on the part of Barack Obama.
And I saw it as a kin, as a relationship to the movement. And I said to myself something is happening here, and I had what I call an executive session with myself. And I said, I don't want to be on the wrong side of history, and I made a decision to switch.
Tavis: Let me shift now to what happened 45 years ago. Before I ask you to give me your reflections on the speech, the "I Have a Dream" speech, you were the youngest person to speak that day at the March on Washington. The youngest person to speak, but you almost didn't get your time at the podium. Take me back to the night before the march, the night before the speech, and what was happening where John Lewis was concerned.
Lewis: Well, on the night of August 27th, we all had to make copies of our speeches available, and only Dr. King failed to make his speech available. He said he was still working on his speech. (Laughter) I'm not so sure that was the case.
Tavis: He didn't want to give his speech up.
Lewis: I don't think he wanted anyone else to see his speech. And there were some words in my speech that people didn't like. I used the word "revolution." I used the phrase "Black masses." And some people said we couldn't use that. I talked about we cannot wait - you tell us to wait, you tell us to be patient. We cannot wait, we cannot be patient. We want our freedom and we want it now.
Some people wanted me to delete that. A. Philip Randolph came to my rescue and said, "There's nothing wrong with the use of the word revolution. There's nothing wrong with use of Black masses. I use them myself sometimes. And it stayed in there.
But down in the body of the speech, I said something like "If we do not see meaningful progress here today, the day will come when we will not confine our marching on Washington. We might be forced to mark through the South the way Sherman did, nonviolently."
People thought that was a little too much, and they demanded that I change it. Even the archbishop of Washington, who was supposed to give the invocation, threatened not to give the invocation if I did not change that part of the speech.
On the next day, August 28th, we marched with this unbelievable multitude of people. And we got to the Lincoln Memorial, and there was still some question about my speech. And A. Philip Randolph and Dr. King and Roy Wilkins and others gathered around, and A. Philip Randolph said, "John, we come together for the sake of unity. Can we delete the reference to Sherman?"
You couldn't say no to A. Philip Randolph, and we deleted the reference to Sherman. And I went on - and I remember so well when I stood up to give that speech, I was only 23 years old. I stood up; I looked out and saw this unbelievable crowd. I looked to my right, I looked to my left, and I opened my mouth and started speaking, and I said what I had to say, and there was so much hope.
And then a few speakers later, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came along, and he said, "I have a dream today. A dream deeply rooted in the American dream." He transformed those marble steps of the Lincoln Memorial into the (unintelligible) pulpit. He preached.
Tavis: He did indeed. Let me ask one quick question before I let you go. I'm so glad to be here - I wish I'd been there with you that day, but I'm glad - I wasn't born then, but I'm glad to be here now to celebrate this 45th anniversary of this speech, and yet I think that America needs to be clear about the fact that you know better than I do that Martin lived five years after that march, and a couple of years after that march he was referring to that "I Have a Dream" speech as a nightmare in America.
So that "I Have a Dream" speech, for many people, is the easiest speech to wrap their arms around. It's the safest speech to deal with. They don't want to deal with the nightmare, they don't want to deal with the anti-Vietnam speech, they don't want to deal with that. I get troubled by the fact that we celebrate this so much, but it doesn't properly contextualize Martin from '63 till the time he's dead in '68.
Lewis: You're so right. I think the most meaningful speech Dr. King gave, and I was there on April 4th, 1967, when he spoke out against the war in Vietnam. He spoke at Riverside Church. And that is the speech that all of us should read and read over and over again.
Tavis: I appreciate you, congressman.
Lewis: Thank you.
Tavis: Love you, and I'm glad to have you on the program, as always.
Lewis: Thank you, brother. Thank you.
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