When I was 19 years old I was a member of Young Democrats. On election night 1986 a friend and I went to the election headquarters of Wyche Fowler who was running for Senate against Republican incumbent Mac Mattingly.
Fowler beat Mattingly that night. I was hanging out with a local TV reporter and his producer who were covering the election and an unassuming man came over to talk to the TV reporter.
He was introduced to me as John Lewis, who had just won the election for Wyche Fowler's former Congressional seat. I congratulated Mr. Lewis and he said a few gracious words and then moved on around the room.
I was an ignorant 19 year old. To me the Civil Rights Movement meant Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. As a middle class white kid in the early 80's this is really all we were taught. If I would have know then what an impact John Lewis had on American history I probably wouldn't have been able to speak to him because he was such an imposing historical figure.
I never forgot meeting him and as I learned more and more about his life and sacrifices I grew more and more in awe of actually having a casual conversation with him.
Through the years I've understood that he had the ability to be unassuming and commanding at the same time. To really speak to people and be interested in what they had to say and where they were coming from even if their ideas didn't necessarily align with his,
We lost John Lewis this weekend and it has troubled me deeply. I hope that Americans of all beliefs can understand what we have lost as a nation and what we need to do to keep his life's work alive and continuing into the future until it is unnecessary.
I know this is probably a little too political for what is a card collecting blog but I fell strongly about this.
And I do have a card to post.
A dealer that I have dealt with frequently over the years gave me a box of Executive Trading cards that he had received as a sample. There were cards of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate and cards of the Presidential Cabinet as well as an Obama series. Out of all of the cards from that box this is the only card that I have in my permanent collection. It is now my most cherished card as I remember the greatest man I ever met.
Real American hero. I teach a unit on the Civil Rights movement every February and talk about Lewis and his contributions every year. That's very cool that you had the opportunity to meet him.
ReplyDeleteGreat post. I think saying anything more would just detract.
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