Eugene weekly., November 06, 2003, Page 11, Image 11

BY ARIA SELIGMANN
True American Hero
Congressman John Lewis to speak in Eugene.
I
n late October, Georgia lawmakers hon-
ored U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) by
introducing a bill in Congress to name
an Atlanta civil rights educational center
after him. Sens. Zell Miller and Saxby
Chambliss and Reps. David Scott and
Denise Majette proposed bills to designate
a building purchased by the Martin Luther
King Jr. National Historic Site as the John
Lewis Civil Rights Institute.
A fitting tribute to a true American hero.
At 23, Lewis was the youngest of the
keynote speakers at the 1963 March on
Washington. It was a year when people
were beaten, jailed and even killed while
participating in nonviolent protest. African
Americans simply wanted the right to vote.
In Birmingham, the commissioner of police
— Eugene “Bull” Connor — used attack
dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protesters.
Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers
was assassinated.
Lewis himself was beaten by police on
Bloody Sunday, yet went on to chair the
Student
Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee. Learning from MLK, he has
tirelessly worked toward The Dream for the
past 40 years, preaching peace and nonvio-
lence as the only means toward the just end
of civil rights for all.
Today, Congressman Lewis, now in his
ninth term as representative from Atlanta, is
the last remaining survivor of the 10 civil
rights, religious, and labor leaders that led
and spoke at the March on Washington.
Congressman Peter DeFazio arrived in
the House at the same time as Lewis 17
years ago. Together, he says they’ve fought
for progressive causes. “At a time when
Congress if full of midgets, Lewis is a true
giant for his role in history,” says DeFazio,
adding, “For example, he’s as passionately
opposed as I am to NAFTA, WTO and all
those trade agreements.”
DeFazio remembers one late night sev-
eral years back when the Republicans were
working out a trade agreement with China,
being the “most abusive they’d been, until
now,” he says, with special offices set up
within the Capitol for high-powered lobby-
ists, with access “to strongarm people” and
public resources available to them.
“John and I decided to visit those people,
and went down and burst through their office
door. John was in front — he’s a stocky guy
— and he shouted ‘We’ve come to throw the
money lenders out of the temple!’”
Pandemonium ensued. The lobbyists
even dropped their cell phones.
“The next day, the room was empty,”
says DeFazio. “It had been a clear violation
of federal law, anyway.”
The respect DeFazio has for Lewis is
apparent in his help in bringing him to
Eugene. Sponsored by the UO Office of the
President, Lewis will speak at 5:30 pm on
Monday, Nov. 10 in the EMU Ballroom,
UO, delivering the lecture, “Peace, Social
Change and Justice.”
His lecture will touch on the changes
that have occurred during the past 40 years,
the positive inroads made to “fulfill the
promise of the dream,” he says, adding,
“it’s time to build on that.”
Lewis looks to the current climate in the
U.S., specifically, the USA PATRIOT Act
(UPA), as having a most adverse impact.
“It’s a violation in my estimation of
basic civil liberties — that’s why I voted
against it and why I think we should strike
it,” he says.
Lewis also has strong words for univer-
sities that have adopted UPA legislation on
campuses. This past summer, the UO
rewrote the Oregon Administrative Rules to
conform with UPA legislation, which
would allow the university to divulge stu-
dents’ information — without their permis-
sion and without notification — to a gov-
ernment agency that asked for it, and would
also force libraries to hand over students’
Internet and other library research informa-
tion if asked.
“I think that’s a violation of basic decen-
cy,” says Lewis. “Of simple constitutional
rights. It shouldn’t happen. In the name of
protecting the country, we’re
violating human beings. We’re
slowly but surely reverting back
to another period.”
To fight that backward slide,
Lewis wants to see more young
people step up and take action.
“Many people today think the
civil rights techniques and tac-
tics of the late ‘50s and ‘60s are old hat and
obsolete. But they’re still relevant,” he
says. “We need to regain passion. We have
a need for nonviolent direct action. I speak
about the right to protest what is right. You
have an obligation to do what I call ‘Get in
the way.’ Move your feet. When I was
growing up in Alabama in the ’40s and
’50s, my parents said, ‘Don’t get in trouble;
don’t get in the way, but in the ’60s I got in
trouble — good trouble. I got in the way.
“Today as citizens, we’re too quiet, too
patient. We have to find a way, to make a
way, to dramatize the issue. It’s still so rele-
vant. I tell young people today … During
the ‘60s we didn’t have a website, we didn’t
have a fax, we had no cell phone. We had
our bodies and literally put them on the line.
We must do that today to turn this country
around — to take it back.”
But Lewis has always preached nonvio-
lence.
“I happen to believe in nonviolence not
simply as a technique, a tactic, but a way
toward what I call ‘the beloved communi-
ty.’ To gain peace, we must use it as a way
of life. The way must be one of love, of
peace, of nonviolence. You come to the
point where the means and the ends are
inseparable and somehow the way is caught
up in the end, and the way is caught up in
the means. You have to believe in the idea
that hate is too heavy a burden to bear.
There is a better, more excellent way.”
As to those protesters who have laid
their bodies down for the good fight, but
have been attacked by police with pepper
spray and rubber bullets, Lewis says, “I
would say to those protesters, ‘Hang in
there. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t
become bitter. Don’t get lost in despair.
Keep coming. In doing so you will educate
the police and the larger community. You
have to keep doing it.’ We kept sitting in
and going on freedom rides. We didn’t stop
and we won. We prevailed.”
ew
Acting for Affirmative Action
Earlier this year, Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) applauded the U.S. Supreme Court decision
in upholding the University of Michigan’s Law School affirmative action program. To encourage
other universities to keep such programs alive, Lewis says, “Affirmative action is still needed.
We need to affirm the inclusion and the participation of all young people in higher education.
For so long people have been left out because of gender, color, race … There should be a real
move to make the university look like America when it comes to faculty and the student body.
University of Oregon
America
Male
Female
White
Hispanic
African American
Asian
Native American
Other
Students
48.9%
51.1%
68.2%
13.5%
11.8%
4%
0.7%
7%
46%
54%
73%
3%
1%
6%
1%
Int'l 7%
Faculty
55%
45%
84%
3%
1%
6%
1%
America Source: U.S. Census American Community Survey Change Profile 2002. University of Oregon Source: UO
Resource Management. 2002 UO Profile. UO declined to respond: 7% students, 5% faculty
–AS
NOVEMBER 6, 2003 11