John Lewis: Civil Rights Pioneer (1940-2020)

My Day
By Dr. J. Ester Davis

We knew it was coming.  We wanted to delay every moment, but we knew what the legendary congressman had made us aware of several months ago.

John Lewis died this week.  The 5’6” tall giant of warrior status succumbed to that place we all have a date with.

Two (2) years ago in July, 2018, Congressman John Lewis was in Dallas at the African American Museum campaigning for Colin Allred.  Congressman Eddie Bernice Johnson asked him to come by on his way back to Washington.   I remember that day well because I read the email late and had to adjust to be there.  Nobody wants to miss an opportunity to be in the same room with Congressman John Lewis. And this would be in fourth time in his presence.

While his visit to Dallas this time was brief, it was filled with meaning, personal sincerity and purpose.  He circled the room with intimacy familiar and comfortable with the people.  He had a quiet mild down home style manner.  With the young people later, he was a master-at-work.

In Dallas, John Lewis mentioned his arrest record of some 40 times. In his death, the media is amplifying that he was ‘arrested more than 40 times’.   And as a former legal assistant in a black law firm in the late 60’s, I still doubt that many do not   digest the full measure of that testimony.  It is always so casually mentioned, but my full memory throttle is of a community coming together, raising the money to post bail, get ‘those boys out of jail’ as I heard so many times, and back to the designated mission.  The legal genius in our community, their assistants, educators,  bartenders, barbers, maids, media, magicians and a whole hosted army of professionals came together to take care of whatever. We all worked endless hours and our monthly long distance telephone bills were several thousand at times.    A vital part of the entire civil rights movement is the absence of the street life community and their benevolence.  That’s another subject.  Another time.

Fortunately in Dallas in the early days we had a fully operated black owned hospital, staffed with offices, doctors, surgical room, pharmacies and nurses. Two (2) taxi cabs companies with full liability insurance transporting our people around.   Our economy was centered around the hospital, a cache of 3,000 businesses south and north and an intentional middle class.

We had powerbrokers in this region like Attorney W. J. Durham, I. H. Clayborn, the Prince Hall Mason Commander & Attorney D. B. Mason, a dapper gentle man that wore bowties, all well connected.  Thurgood Marshall, the former Chief Justice, was an attorney anchored in Washington, DC.  Marshall and Durham were former college classmates. Marshall called often late in the evening, for Brice Cunningham and/or Attorney Louis Bedford to handle cases elsewhere. Clayborn and Sam Pierce, former Secretary of HUD, were high ranking Masons.  Attorneys Durham and Mason was connected to the out-of-state legal world across the heavily populated black south.  Add to this equation a group I called the  “Conductors”, which was the family owned funeral homes connecting the south along with their “Tonto”, the Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly African American Labor Union  and the network is completely crystal clear.

So, when we say that John Lewis was a Civil Rights Pioneer, he was that finale part of an exemplary gridiron  that operated with precision intelligence across state and county lines in these United States to propel this part of history to the finish line.  Thank you Congressman John Lewis for all your endurances for a better America.

Esterdavis2000@gmail.com