Freedom at All Costs

Transcript: from Interview with John Lewis

00:00
Terry Gross (interviewer):
This is Fresh Air. I’m Terry Gross. On this Martin Luther King Day, a day before the inauguration
of America’s first African-American president, we hear from a leader of the Civil Rights
Movement who risked his life marching for the right of African Americans to vote. From 1963 to
‘66, John Lewis chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, mobilizing students to
protest against segregation and for voting rights. He was a leader of the now-famous voting
rights march from Selma to Montgomery, which ended soon after it started when Alabama
state troopers attacked the demonstrators on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma in what
became known as Bloody Sunday.

Lewis was a close associate of Martin Luther King. He was the youngest speaker at the 1963
march on Washington, which ended with King's "I Have a Dream" speech. Since 1987, Lewis has
served in Congress representing Georgia's 5th District, which includes Atlanta. He recorded our
conversation from his office. He told me he grew up in Alabama at a time when there was one
county whose population was 80 percent African American, but there wasn't a single registered
Black voter.

Congressman Lewis, welcome to Fresh Air, and thank you so much for joining us. When you
were a young man, were you ever challenged at the polls? Did you have a hard time registering
or did anyone ever try to prevent you from voting?

01:19
John Lewis:
When I was growing up in rural Alabama, it was impossible for me to register to vote. I didn't
become a registered voter until I moved to Tennessee, to Nashville as a student.

01:35
Terry Gross:
Why was it impossible?

01:36
John Lewis:
Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father,
my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they
attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test. And many
people were so intimidated, so afraid that they will lose their jobs, they will be evicted from the
farms, and they just - they almost gave up.

02:12
Terry Gross:
Your parents were sharecroppers. Now...
02:14
John Lewis:
My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers. They had been tenant
farmers like so many people in the South. They knew the stories that had occurred. They knew
places in Alabama where people were evicted from their farm, from the plantation. They read
about, they heard about incidents in Tennessee where people were evicted from the farms and
plantations back in 1956, in 1957 in West Tennessee between Nashville and Memphis,
Tennessee.

02:47
Terry Gross:
Now because of that did you - did your parents tell you not to bother to try to vote because it
would be dangerous, they might lose their farm? I mean, you were - you were educated, you
could certainly pass the literacy test.

02:59
John Lewis:
My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about
segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble,
not to make any noise. But we had people that were educated. We had teachers, we had high
school principals, we had people teaching in colleges and university in Tuskegee, Alabama. But
they were told they failed the so-called literacy test.

03:30
Terry Gross:
So did you go to the registration place and try to register or did you not even bother?

03:35
John Lewis:
I didn't bother in Alabama. I didn't seek to get registered until I moved to Tennessee.

03:43
Terry Gross:
One of the more dramatic moments of the civil rights movement was a march that you helped
lead in 1965 of about 600 people. The march was supposed to be from Selma to Montgomery,
Alabama demanding voting rights but the marchers were stopped soon after you started
marching, and you were beaten by the police. Would you talk first a little about the goal of that
march?

04:05
John Lewis:
In 1965, the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7th was planned to
dramatize to the state of Alabama and to the nation that people of color wanted to register to
vote. In Selma, you could only attempt to register to vote on the first and third Mondays of
each month. You had to go down to the courthouse and get a copy of the so-called literacy test
and attempt to pass the test. And people stood in line day in and day out failing to get a copy of
the test or failing to pass the test.

So after several hundred people had been arrested and people had been beaten and one young
man had been shot and killed, we decided to march. And on Sunday afternoon, March 7, about
600 of us left a little church called Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church, and started walking in an
orderly, peaceful, nonviolent fashion through the streets of Selma. We were walking in twos, no
one saying a word. We came to the edge of the bridge crossing the Alabama River, we
continued to walk. We came to the highest point on the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Down below, we
saw a sea of blue - Alabama state troopers. And we kept walking, and we came within hearing
distance of the state troopers, and a man identified himself and said, I'm Major John Cloud of
the Alabama state troopers. This is an unlawful march. You will not be allowed to continue. I
give you three minutes to disperse and return to your church.

In less than a minute and a half, the major said, troopers advance. And you saw these men
putting on their gas masks. They came toward us beating us with bull whips, night sticks,
trivving us with horses and releasing the tear gas. I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a
night stick. I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die. I had a concussion there at the
bridge, and almost 44 years later, I don't recall how I made it back across that bridge through
the streets of Selma.

But I do recall being back at the church that Sunday afternoon. The church was full to capacity,
more than 2,000 people on the outside, and someone said to me, John, say something to the
audience. Speak to them. And I stood up and said something like, I don't understand it - how
President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam but cannot send troops to Selma, Alabama, to
protect people who only desires to register to vote.

07:02
Terry Gross:
What was the impact, do you think, of that march on the actual passage of the Voting Rights
Act?

07:09
John Lewis:
The march created a sense of righteous indignation among the American people. When they
saw the photographs, when they read the stories, when they heard the news on the radio,
watched it on television, they didn't like it. A few days after Bloody Sunday, there was
demonstration in more than 80 American cities. At the White House, at the Department of
Justice people were demanding that the government act.

President Johnson didn't like what he saw. He called Governor Wallace, the governor of
Alabama at the time, to come to Washington and tried to get assurance from the governor that
he would be able to protect us if we decided to march again. The governor could not assure the
president, so President Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard, called up part of the
United States military, and eight days after Bloody Sunday, President Lyndon Johnson spoke to
a joint session of the Congress and made one of the most meaningful speeches any American
president had made in modern time on the whole question of voting rights, and he introduced
the Voting Rights Act.

And I was sitting in a home in Selma, Alabama, that evening when President Johnson spoke to
the nation and spoke to the Congress, sitting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And at one point in
the speech, before Dr. — before President Johnson, rather, concluded the speech, he said, and
we shall overcome — and we shall overcome.

I looked at Dr. King, tears came down his face, and we all cried a little to hear President Johnson
say, and we shall overcome. And he said to me and to others in the room, we will make it from
Selma to Montgomery, and the Voting Rights Act will be passed.
Finally, two weeks after Bloody Sunday, we started on the third effort to make it from Selma to
Montgomery. And 300 of us marched all of the way, but by the time we walked into
Montgomery there were more than 25,000 citizens. And that effort led the Congress to debate
the Voting Rights Acts and pass that act, and President Johnson signed it into law in August of
1965.

09:48
Terry Gross:
Can you talk a little bit about how your mindset changed to go from what your parents told
you, which was don't make trouble, it's too risky, to making a lot of trouble, to leading marches,
to be willing to get beaten on the head and knocked unconscious to stand up for what you felt
was right?

10:09
John Lewis:
When growing up, I saw segregation. I saw racial discrimination. I saw those signs that said
white men, colored men. White women, colored women. White waiting. And I didn't like it. I
would ask my mother and ask my parents over and over again, why? They said, that's the way it
is. Don't get in the way, don't get in trouble. I was so inspired by Rosa Parks in 1955. I was 15
years old. I was inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. I heard his words on the old radio. It seemed
like he was saying to me, John Lewis, you too can make a contribution.

10:48
Terry Gross:
What was he saying on the radio?

10:50
John Lewis:
He was saying...

10:51
Terry Gross:
Was this a sermon or something or a speech? What is a sermon or a speech?

10:54
John Lewis:
It was a speech but also a sermon. He was speaking at a church in Montgomery. And he was
saying, in effect, that we must not just be concerned about the pearly gates and the streets
with milk and honey. We have to be concerned about the streets of Montgomery and the doors
of Woolworth. That we have to be concerned about jobs, about blacks working as cashiers, of
people being able to try on clothing and bring down those signs. And I said to myself, if I ever
got a chance to strike a blow against segregation and racial discrimination, I'm going to play my
part. I’m going to do my part.

I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956, with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins
— I was only 16 years old — we went down to the public library trying to check out some
books, and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for
coloreds. It was a public library. I never went back to that public library until July 5th, 1998 —
by this time I'm in the Congress — for a book signing of my book Walking with the Wind.
12:12
Terry Gross:
Your memoir.

12:14
John Lewis:
And they gave me a library card after the program was over. And I was inspired. I studied the
philosophy and the discipline of non-violence in Nashville as a student, and I staged a sitting-in
in the fall of 1959 and got arrested the first time in February 1960.

12:38
Terry Gross:
Now you describe the difficulty your parents had accepting the risks that you were taking as a
civil rights activist. As an activist, did you find it was difficult to convince the older generation to
join up with the movement? Was it easier to convince younger people than older people?

12:58
John Lewis:
It was much easier to convince younger people, to convince students, whether they were high
school or college students. In the South during that period, there was so much fear. There were
people that were afraid to be a friend. But there were others who said, we'll hold the mass
meetings, the rallies, the voter registration workshop in a church. It was this feeling, well, it's
taking place in a church. It must be OK. It must be all right.

There was ministers, religious leaders that was afraid to say anything from their pulpits because
they thought, for good reason, the church could be burned down, could be bombed. So we had
to do a lot of convincing. And we would go into the fields where people were working in the
fields and try to convince some of the field workers. We would go into beauty shops, the barber
shops, knock on the doors of people's homes trying to get them to become participant, to get
involved, to come to a rally, come to a mass meeting.

14:05
Terry Gross:
Give me a sense of what you'd say.

14:06
John Lewis:
We would say to people, you know, you've been living here for 40 years, for 50 years. Your
street is not paved. You have a dirt road. You don't have clean water. If you want to change
that, you must register and you must vote. You can get someone else elected. Come to a mass
meeting, come next Monday. The neighbors are coming. Your uncle is coming. Your children are
coming. You should be there. I tell people, we're going to have a march for the right to vote.
Don't be afraid. You may get arrested, but a lot of other people will be getting arrested with
you. And some people would be convinced, and some would not.

14:55
Terry Gross:
On this Martin Luther King Day, I'd love to hear the story of how you first met Reverend King.
15:02
John Lewis:
In 1957, when I finished high school, I was 17 years old. This was two years after the
Montgomery bus walkout, two years after Rosa Parks had taken a seat, and Dr. King had
emerged as a national leader.

I wanted to attend a little college about 10 miles from my home, an all-white state college. I
submitted my high school application. I never heard a word from the college, so I wrote a letter
to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I didn't tell my mother or my father. Dr. King wrote me back, sent
me a round-trip Greyhound bus ticket and invited me to come to Montgomery to see him.

In the meantime, I had been accepted at a little college in Nashville, Tennessee, so in

September 1957 I went off to school to Nashville. And after being there for two weeks, I told
one of my teachers that I had been in contact with Dr. King. This teacher informed Dr. King that
I was in school in Nashville, so Martin Luther King, Jr., got back in touch with me and suggested
when I was home for spring break to come and see him. So my father drove me to the
Greyhound bus station. I boarded the bus to travel from Troy to Montgomery.

And a young lawyer by the name of Fred Gray, who was the lawyer for Rosa Parks, for Dr. King,
and the Montgomery movement, met me at the Greyhound bus station and drove me to the
First Baptist Church and ushered me into the office of the church. I saw Martin Luther King, Jr.,
standing behind the desk. I was so scared. I didn't know what to say or what to do. And Dr. King
spoke up and said, are you the boy from Troy? Are you John Lewis? And I said, Dr. King, I am
John Robert Lewis — I gave him my whole name. And that was my meeting of Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., for the first time.

17:16
Terry Gross:
So what did he do? Did he try to encourage you to keep trying to get into that white college, or
did he say, forget college, just come join the movement, work with me?

17:26
John Lewis:
No. Martin Luther King, Jr., said to me, we want to help. If you want to go to Troy State, we will
help you. We would hire Fred Gray as the lawyer to file a suit against Troy State. But he went on
to say, if you really pursue this effort, your family home can be bombed or burned down. They
could lose their jobs. You may be beaten. Things can happen to you, but you must be willing to
do it. And I told him I was willing to do it. But he said, you must go home and talk to your
mother and talk to your father and get them to be willing to file the suit.

So that afternoon, I went back to Troy, Alabama, met with my mother, met with my father, told
them about the discussion I had with Dr. King. And they were so scared, they were so
frightened, they didn't want to have anything to do with me pursuing my effort to enter for a
state college. So I continued to study in Nashville.

18:36
Terry Gross:
And did other things in the Civil Rights Movement instead.
18:40
John Lewis:
Well, I continued the sit-ins, got on the Freedom Rides and became an active participant not
just in Nashville but throughout the American South.

18:55
Terry Gross:
What impact did his assassination have on you?

19:00
John Lewis:
The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., made me very, very sad, and I mourned and I cried
like many of our citizens did. As a matter of fact, when I heard that he was — that he had been
assassinated, I was with Robert Kennedy in Annapolis, campaigning with him. But somehow I
said to myself, I'm not going to become bitter or hostile. I'm not going to give up or give in. I
threw myself more into the campaign, and I made a commitment to myself that I would do
what I can to continue the work of Dr. King, and later, after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated
two months later, to continue his effort to make our country a more just, a more fair country.

20:12
Terry Gross:
Do you think that there have been incidences where the African American vote has been
suppressed in recent years in spite of the Voting Rights Act?

20:22
John Lewis:
There have been efforts in recent years and as recently as this past election with it being a
deliberate and systematic attempt to suppress the African American vote. We had a case in
some parts of Virginia where people tried to say to African Americans — to would-be
Democratic voters, you're not supposed to vote on Tuesday, November 4th. You're supposed to
vote on Wednesday, November 5th. They were saying, in effect, that there's going to be such a
big turnout, such a massive turnout, and you don't want to stand in these long line.

This is not necessarily a state, a political party doing it, but it's individuals. And there have been
cases where people go to the polls planning to vote, waiting in line, and you see people
standing, taking names, taking the license plates on cars of how law enforcement people are
standing nearby and telling people that if you go and attempt to vote, you cannot vote because
you owe a bill - you haven't paid your taxes. And people are intimidated. They're harassed.

21:51
Terry Gross:
I want to quote something that you wrote in an op-ed piece in October of 2003. And this was
about gay rights and the right for gay people to marry. You wrote: I have fought too hard and
too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination
based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex
couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I
have known in racism and in bigotry.

Now, I've heard some African American leaders say that it's wrong to make — I'm not quoting
you here, I'm saying this part myself. Your quote has ended. And I'm saying, I've heard some
African American leaders say that it's wrong to make any connection between the civil rights
movement and the gay rights movement because discrimination against African Americans and
discrimination against gays are completely — completely different things, and being gay and
being Black are completely different things. What's your take on that?

22:53
John Lewis:
Well, I do not buy that argument. I do not buy that argument. And today, I think more than ever
before, we have to speak up and speak out to end discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Dr. King used to say when people talked about Blacks and whites falling in love and getting
married — you know, at one time, in the state of Virginia, in my native state of Alabama, in
Georgia and other parts of the South, Blacks and whites could not fall in love and get married.
And Dr. King took a simple argument and said, races don't fall in love and get married.
Individuals fall in love and get married.

It's not the business of the federal government. It's not the business of the state government to
tell two individuals that they cannot fall in love and get married. And so I go back to what I said
and wrote those lines a few years ago, that I fought too long and too hard against
discrimination based on race and color not to stand up and fight and speak out against
discrimination based on sexual orientation.

And you hear people defending marriage. Gay marriage is not a threat to heterosexual
marriage. It is time for us to put that argument behind us. You cannot separate the issue of civil
rights. It one of those absolute, immutable principle — we got to have not just civil rights for
some but civil rights for all of us.

24:45
Terry Gross:
When you say not just civil rights for some, you even mean not just civil rights for African
Americans but for gay people too?

24:51
John Lewis:
Not just civil rights for African American, other minorities, but civil rights also for gay people.

24:58
Terry Gross:
Are you concerned that now that Barack Obama is about to become president that a lot of
people might be thinking, pwhew, wow, solved the racism problem, glad that's over, don't have
to worry about that anymore. Don't have to take that into account anymore.

25:14
John Lewis:
I am concerned that there are some feelings in some quarters in some corners that — what do
people of color want now? We elected Barack Obama as president. It's over. People talk about
the post-racial America. I see his election not as the end but as a continuum. But we're not
there yet. We have not yet created the beloved community that Dr. King spoke of. I see this as a
down payment — a major down payment on the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. Even with this
election, we still have a great distance to go before we lay down the bird in the race.
26:07
Terry Gross:
Of all the people who have passed on who you were close to, who are some of the people who
you were — who you most wish were here today to witness the inauguration of America's first
African American president?

26:24
John Lewis:
Oh, I wish — I truly wish that so many people, many of these just indigenous people that stood
in those unmovable lines in the heart of the Deep South. Many of the people that were on that
bridge on Bloody Sunday, I wish they could be here today, but many of them are gone on.
Individual like Fannie Lou Hamer, sharecropper in the Delta, Mississippi, who was beaten but
who testified at the Democratic Convention in 1964.

I wish that Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., President Johnson, President Kennedy
and others could witness what is happening in America. There's countless individuals that I wish
could be on the Mall, on the steps of the Capitol and see what is happening in America.

27:29
Terry Gross:
And where will you be on Inauguration Day?

27:32
John Lewis:
On Inauguration Day I will be on the platform sitting on the steps behind President Barack
Obama. I don't know how I'm going to take it all in because from sitting on the steps, I will be
able to look right down the Mall and see past the Washington Monument and see the Lincoln
Memorial where we stood more than 45 years ago. And during those days, during that period,
many of the people who voted for him could not register and vote.

28:20
Terry Gross:
Congressman John Lewis, thank you so much for talking with us.

28:24
John Lewis:
Well, thank you very much. Thank you.

28:26
Terry Gross:
John Lewis spoke to us from his office on Capitol Hill. He's been a Democratic Congressman
from Georgia since 1987.