In his eulogy for John Lewis, former Pres. Obama proposed a swath of voting rights expansions, including: - Automatic registration - Adding polling places - Expanding early voting - Making Election Day a holiday - Eliminating the filibuster, if necessary
Obama also spoke of his admiration for Lewis in his own career, calling Lewis both a friend and a hero.James wrote to the believers,"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing."
John Lewis -- the first of the Freedom Riders, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the people of this state and this district for 33 years, mentor to young people, including me at the time, until his final day on this Earth -- he not only embraced that responsibility, but he made it his life's work.
President Barack Obama walks alongside Rep. John Lewis, one of the original marchers, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches in Selma, Ala., March 7, 2015. Like John the Baptist preparing the way, like those Old Testament prophets speaking truth to kings, John Lewis did not hesitate -- he kept on getting on board buses and sitting at lunch counters, got his mugshot taken again and again, marched again and again on a mission to change America.Helped organize the Freedom Summer in Mississippi when he was just 24.
The life of John Lewis was, in so many ways, exceptional. It vindicated the faith in our founding, redeemed that faith; that most American of ideas; that idea that any of us ordinary people without rank or wealth or title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation, and come together, and challenge the status quo, and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals. What a radical ideal.
President Barack Obama awards the Medal of Freedom to Congressman and civil rights pioneer John Lewis at a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, Feb. 15, 2011, in Washington, D.C.He believed that in all of us, there exists the capacity for great courage, that in all of us there is a longing to do what's right, that in all of us there is a willingness to love all people, and to extend to them their God-given rights to dignity and respect. So many of us lose that sense.
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