A few weeks ago I had privilege of hearing a reportback by young people from the University of San Francisco's Black Living-Learning Community on their visits to the major sites of 1950s and 60s civil rights struggles. They returned both shaken, energized, and inspired -- very likely changed for life.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank writes of the impact in this moment of leading his children on a similar pilgrimage.
Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank writes of the impact in this moment of leading his children on a similar pilgrimage.
From my removed vantage point on the civil rights trail, the Mueller report offered reasons for hope. ... Like the hotheaded [Sheriff Bull] Connor and [Sheriff Jim] Clark, whose clumsy responses to civil disobedience turned public opinion against them, the erratic Trump weakens his own cause.
We hear in Trump a refined version of Connor and Clark and George Wallace as he exploits racial fears that have always been with us. This time, it’s a fear of immigrants and minorities trying to “take away our history and our heritage,” as Trump says, leaving the “culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues” of Confederate heroes.
John Lewis stood against such ideas when he faced Clark’s thugs in 1965. I stand with Lewis today when he promises to cause all “necessary trouble” to face down Trump. “Whatever he tries to do, he cannot take us back,” Lewis says. “During the next few weeks and months and next year, there will be some setbacks. But the American people are not going back.”
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| Congressman John Lewis |
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