Know Their Names

Elijah Cummings, John Lewis and C.T. Vivian

Elijah Cummings died October 17, 2019.

The photo above does not include Elijah Cummings. It is a photo of Martin Luther King, John Lewis and two unidentified men. I mention that because Senator Marco Rubio, one of two Republican senators from Florida - in other words, a ‘Florida man’ - mistakenly posted a photo of Elijah Cummings in his tribute to John Lewis. It created a social media kerfuffle over Rubio’s inability to distinguish between two men who were congressional colleagues.

In fact it caused a kerfuffle tucked inside a brouhaha surrounded by a phalanx of furors.

Elijah Cummings was fiery as Chairman of the Oversight and Reform committee in Congress. He was also the Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. I first truly became aware of him during the congressional hearings featuring Michael Cohen. His closing statement for these hearings was one for the ages.

You can experience and appreciate it in the following clip.

The Reverend C.T. Vivian who died July 17, 2020, the very same day as John Lewis, was considered to be one of Martin Luther King’s ‘field generals’. He was fiercely dedicated to the civil rights movement and a very strong advocate of non-violent civil disobedience.

“Nonviolence is the only honorable way of dealing with social change, because if we are wrong, nobody gets hurt but us,” Mr. Vivian said in an address to civil rights workers, as recounted in “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68” (2006), by Taylor Branch. “And if we are right, more people will participate in determining their own destinies than ever before.”

Like his followers, Mr. Vivian was arrested often, jailed and beaten. In 1961, at the end of a violence-plagued interracial Freedom Ride to Jackson, he was dispatched to the Hinds County Prison Farm, where he was beaten by guards.

I have a hard time imagining the man pictured above with that beatific face having to suffer such outrage.

John Lewis, who passed on the same day as the Rev. Vivian, was a U.S. Representative from Georgia and was integral to the civil rights movement ever since he was a young man of 23 giving a speech during the 1963 March on Washington. A speech which was modified by his elders in an attempt to turn down the heat. He was also part of Martin Luther King’s inner circle and the president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

The best quote I can find for John Lewis is this one:

“My philosophy is very simple,” Lewis says. “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, say something. Do something. Get in trouble. Good trouble.”

Here is a poem by William Ernest Henley about inner strength and perseverance. Reportedly, a favorite of John Lewis.

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

These men lived and died during an era where much was accomplished but much has been left unfinished. As I said in Saturday’s writing, there are forces trying to roll back all of the progress of the last 100 years. It is literally the point of the “Make America Great Again” slogan.

It has become our soul duty to stop that from happening.

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Here’s some good news sent to me by alert reader Linda Hedlund: the dam that has blocked fish runs on the Nooksack River in Washington for the past 60 years will soon be removed! This follows the removal of the dams on the Lower White Salmon and the Elwha Rivers in the last several years.

In other good news, alert reader Steve Laboff has taken on the responsibility of a rescue dog now that he has so much retirement time on his hands. May I introduce “River”. (Sorry but the link will take you to the social media evil empire.)