I’ve been too emotional to write something proper here about Rep. John Lewis. When I wrote that Black people have been the perfecters of this democracy, he was top of my mind. He was one of the greatest Americans we ever produced, loved this country that didn’t love us so deeply. 
In 2014, I had the honor of interviewing him about Freedom Summer. We cannot let our remembrances of him and his generation create this gauzy view of the violent and brutal racial apartheid that they fought against. propublica.org/article/interv…
Rep. Lewis was born into a family of Alabama sharecroppers who sacrificed so he could attend college and he *dropped out* to fight for our freedom, getting arrested again and again, knowing Black people were getting killed for this work. I would not be be here if not for him.
So, we must honor him in two ways right now. One, teach your children the true history of this country and of the heroism and belief in this nation’s founding ideals of our true founding fathers and mothers.
And call your representatives in Congress and tell them to restore the protections of the Voting Rights Act that this man nearly died securing. Any official expressing sympathies for his passing while refusing to support this bill is insincere.
