Rep. John Lewis did not let racism stop him from standing up for dignity and equality

It was a Friday morning in October 2001 when I received a call from Rep. Bob Matsui’s chief of staff.

The congressman would be hosting his colleague, Georgia Rep. John Lewis, for events that weekend in Sacramento and Lewis asked Matsui if he could arrange for him to attend a synagogue in the area. He didn’t want to speak. He just wanted to join us and sit in the pews. I asked that the congressman share some words from my pulpit before the recitation of the prayer for our country. I also mentioned that we would be celebrating the bar mitzvah of Stan Berrin, son of Dr. Rob Berrin and his wife Susanne.

After Congressman Matsui introduced his colleague, you could hear a pin drop. The 500 worshippers were mesmerized by John Lewis’ eloquence. Without any prepared text or notes, he spoke softly but deliberately, sharing his story of growing up in Alabama, the son of a sharecropper.

He spoke about having to attend segregated public schools. He described not having a toilet in his house, having to go outside to an outhouse. He told us of the racial discrimination that he and the African American community experienced and how he could relate to the Jewish people’s struggles with anti-Semitism over the centuries. He shared that he had been beaten severely and was arrested 40 times for participating in or leading non-violent civil rights protests.

When he concluded his brief remarks, he turned to the 13-year-old bar mitzvah celebrant and wished him “mazel tov” for celebrating this important milestone of his life, and expressed the hope that he would grow up in a society that has learned the lessons of the past.

Nineteenth-century writer Jean Paul hit the nail on the head when he said, “The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and evil are the result of the moral atmosphere they breathe.”

For too many years, the moral atmosphere in Lewis’ life was contaminated by bigotry and racism. Yet Lewis never allowed the beatings, the arrests for his non-violent civil protests and the hatred to affect his determination to work for change in our country. In his remarks to our congregation on that Shabbat morning, he reminded us that whatever progress our country has made over these years in fighting racism and bigotry is still deficient.

As I reflected in that moment, when he spoke to my congregation, I marveled at how far we have come as a country in striving for civil rights. I shed tears of joy in 2008 when our country elected the first African American president. And I shed tears of sadness today to see our country so divided.

I pray that we will one day wake up and see the “other” as the divinely human beings we all are and that our leaders in government, law enforcement, houses of worship and the workplace will model the kind of behavior that will inspire us — just as John Lewis has inspired us during his life and career with courage and determination to fight for equality and dignity for all.

May his memory endure as a blessing and may his life’s work inspire all of us to stand up to racism, discrimination and bigotry, wherever and whenever it rears its ugly head.

This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 5:00 AM.