U.S. Rep. John Lewis brings civil rights message to Wilmington Published: Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 11:09 p.m. Last Modified: Sunday, January 30, 2011 at 11:09 p.m.
The Georgia Democrat was the keynote speaker during U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre’s 15th annual Southeastern North Carolina Black History Month Celebration. McIntyre said the early celebration tries to heal wounds and build on the community’s common strengths. Lewis added the celebration marks the progress that’s been made since the civil rights movement. “We may be diverse, but we’re one people, one family, one community,” Lewis said. Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield Jr. and others spoke before McIntyre introduced Lewis as having spoken at the march on Washington in 1963, an organizer of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tenn., leader of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. in 1965, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Atlanta city councilman and U.S. representative. “This man didn’t just study it,” McIntyre said of the civil rights movement. “John Lewis did not stop fighting for the things he believed in.” Lewis took the lectern and spoke of living on his family’s farm outside of Troy, Ala., in a county that was 80 percent black but didn’t have one African American registered to vote. He recounted traveling to Troy and asking his parents about the “Whites Only” signs. “Don’t get in the way,” Lewis said his parents told him. “Don’t get in trouble.” Later, though, Lewis met Martin Luther King Jr., who inspired him to get in the way and get into “good” and “necessary” trouble. So Lewis began getting into trouble, from lunch counters in Nashville to buses throughout the South to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where he was beaten by Alabama state troopers. “But I didn’t give up,” Lewis said. “I didn’t become bitter.” For some, that determination became fatal. Lewis spoke of blacks who were killed during the civil rights movement, saying he has the opportunity to serve this country because of those men, because “somebody, someplace along the way, paid a price. “And we must never forget it.” Matt Tomsic: 343-2070 On Twitter: @MattToms -- http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20110130/ARTICLES/110139982/-1/opinion?Title=Lewis-brings-civil-rights-message-to-Wilmington%3E Via InstaFetch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Sixties-L" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
