The Torch Is Passed

As I sat in front of my television this morning listening to people eulogizing John Lewis and C.T. Vivian I could not help thinking that the greatest patriot is the person who willingly suffers condemnation from his fellow citizens and even physical injury in an effort to make his or her country better. John Lewis and C.T. Vivian did that and more. You do not have to be black to know that they were great patriots, and we are better because of them.

As the death of these great men attests, we are losing the moral giants, the leaders who fought and sacrificed so much to make liberty and justice for all a reality. In an homage to Abraham Lincoln let my say: it is now for us the living to dedicate ourselves to completing the work that they have thus far so nobly carried on. I think that homage to Lincoln in a tribute to John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and other civil rights leaders is fitting because those courageous leaders did indeed dedicate themselves to completing the unfinished work of emancipation, reconstruction, and the implementation of the full rights of citizenship as guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment:

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

We shall dearly miss John Lewis, C.T. Vivian and so many others, but as we celebrate their lives and their work we should understand that their great cause, their struggle has entered a new phase. The torch has not been passed to new charismatic leaders but rather to a ground swell rising up from the citizenry and a moral imperative that defines what this country must become. Unfortunately, the resistance to this ground swell is as unrelenting as it is immoral. That is why we need to keep pressing forward. Any hesitation, any lapse into complacency will result in the sort of backsliding that has been so frustrating to everyone working for social justice and racial equality. As we honor our civil rights lions for their work let us do so with our work.