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Rest in Power to Two Civil Rights Icons
Rep. John Lewis and the Rev. C. T. Vivian never stopped fighting
It’s a tough day in the world of freedom fighting now that two giants of the movement have passed away. Rep. John Lewis, who once chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was one of the “Big Six” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington, died Friday, July 17, 2020, after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 80. The Rev. C. T. Vivian, who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., died of natural causes on Friday, July 17, 2020. He was 95.
Their families were joined by activists the world over in mourning the loss of two men who helped bring about significant racial change in the United States and the end of the nation’s state-sanctioned apartheid, also known as Jim Crow.
What’s perhaps most remarkable to consider as the nation mourns, and continues to protest in the streets, is that they were young men when they first marched, endured police beatings, and participated in sit-ins. And they continued to fight for the rest of their lives. The organizers and protests of today would not be possible without the work put in by organizers of old.
Lewis was 23 when he led the massive protest known as the March on Washington. He was beaten by police, he…
