Immigration a new civil rights battle

This past March 07, 2015 Congressman John Lewis went to Selma, Alabama with President and Mrs. Obama to observe the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" march which has changed American history forever. On the day thousands gathered on the Edmund Pettus Bridge to listen to Obama and Lewis on this historic day. It was the same bridge where Lewis stood with Martin Luther King, Jr. five decades ago. Before starting his speech, President Obama introduced Lewis as one of his heroes.
John Lewis played a very important role during the civil rights movement. He became a symbol of non-violence and fought for the basic rights of the African-Americans that were promised to them when slavery was abolished. Lewis had worked closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the time of the civil rights movement. Under Martin Luther King's direction Lewis and another activist named Hosea Williams led the mighty Selma march which won voting rights for the African-Americans.
During the march when hundreds of African-Americans followed Lewis, the demonstrators and some of the activists were beaten with Billy clubs and bloodied by state troopers as they approached the bridge. Police released tear gas as the marchers crossed the county line. Undeterred they continued on the 54-mile trek towards state capital Montgomery. They were set on their mission to demand for new legislation to be signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson so that they can exercise their right to vote. They had decided to take their complaint directly to the Alabama governor George Wallace who was a segregationist. Prior to the march he had issued an order for all the white people to stay home and not to participate or show solidarity with the marchers. Thousands came out despite his warning and stood watch waving confederate flag. Wallace refused to protect the marchers and instead dispatched state troopers to handle them.
Even before the Selma march, John Lewis's momentous contribution to the civil rights movement is something that is highly revered by all Americans.  Lewis, a son of a sharecropper, was a theology student in Alabama. At the time he was twenty-one years old, and one of the original thirteen riders (seven black, six white) of the Freedom Riders. They rode a bus from Washington DC that headed south to test a Supreme Court decision. A year ago, in 1960, it invalidated the segregation of the inter-state transportation, and the facilities at the bus and train terminals. The bus ride was supposed to prove whether the integration in the reluctant and heavily segregated Deep South was actually implemented.
The bus riders took an entire system built on hating their black skin. The riders knew it could end up badly. They risked everything to take a ride for freedom. They left on May 09, (Mother's Day), in an effort to end segregation in the United States. In Rock Hill, North Carolina, at the bus depot, Lewis and his white friend were badly beaten and bloodied. Elwin Wilson was one of the perpetrators who had attacked Lewis. Young Lewis was determined to reach his destination, and they continued on.
Later one of the Freedom Riders bus was first stoned, the students beaten, and the bus was firebombed as it approached Anniston, Alabama. The passengers escaped only to face vicious mobs, the heinous members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and jail cells. There were a total of 436 people who were on different buses, which came from different strategic points across the country with the same goal. In their struggle against racism and injustice, they helped US to change laws where everyone in this country can use the same public amenities while they are travelling.
In 2011, on the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Ride Lewis had given many interviews and had recalled his experience. He stated, "Boarding that Greyhound bus to travel through the heart of the Deep South, I felt good. I felt happy. I felt liberated; I was like a soldier in a nonviolent army."  This movement was greatly influenced by Mahatma Gandhi's nonviolent teachings and philosophy. What the Freedom Riders demonstrated in 1961 hastened the United States in taking a bigger step towards desegregation which ignited a nationwide movement for civil rights.
Lewis's philosophy resonates with this quote: "To err is human, to forgive divine." Forgiveness in the Biblical sense is a hard thing to do. In May 2011, in the spirit of true forgiveness, Congressman John Lewis did just that. On national television, he publicly forgave his abuser, Elwin Wilson who beat him up at the bus depot in North Carolina. In 1961, Wilson, a member of Ku Klux Klan, beat the life out of Lewis, because of the colour of his skin. Half a century later, Lewis showed no desire to avenge the burning pain and rage he must have had from time to time about the fateful day. Instead he showed humility, and his human capacity to forgive.
He held Wilson's hand and told him 'love is much stronger than hate,' and he forgave him. It was a true moment of reconciliation. It would have been perfectly justified if he refused to sit next to Wilson, let alone accept his apology, after the way he degraded him. He demonstrated a benevolent sympathy as well as his ability to forgive a person who had done him wrong. This is a testament to courage, moral decency, and generosity of his spirit. In a candid conversation he let Wilson know that he understands what motivated him because they both were victims of segregation.
Fifty years later, it showed that early on Lewis made a decision to move on with his life, without being bitter and blinded by prejudice and hate. For his own sake he let go of his private pain which had helped him to validate his own worth as a human being. Since then he has dedicated his career to public service.
What about Elwin Wilson, the Ex-Klansman? What has his life been like since he horribly beat up Lewis? As a KKK recruit, he took an oath to hate all black people. It gave him no peace and he strived to make amends for what he had done. Throughout his life he had been sorrowful when he realised how inextricably he had been caught up in hate.  His need for an apology grew day by day for the violence he had inflicted on Lewis, five decades ago. In 2009, he came to Congressman John Lewis's Capitol Hill office in Washington, DC to offer him an apology that he has been carrying in his heart. He told Lewis that he thought about him a lot, and felt a longing to seek him out because 'hate is too heavy a burden to carry.' The public apology came on May 04, of the same year.
For some of the Freedom Riders like John Lewis, living a life with the emotions and the experience of that appalling day in 1961, positioned them to be stronger forces and advocates against racism. A lot of them went on to become social workers, preachers, lawyers and public servants. Lewis's work is still not done and now at age 75 he is serving his fourteenth consecutive term in the Congress. He feels the scars of racism are deeply embedded in American psyche. The country has come some distance, in getting rid of xenophobia, but there is still a lot of hate that lingers.
Congressman Lewis has earned the nickname the 'old lion' because he carries himself with the 'royal bearing of one.' As an acknowledgement to his struggle for racial justice, and for his non-violence approach during the civil rights movement, President Obama had adorned him with the Medal of Freedom. This highest civilian honour was given to him on the eve of the Freedom Riders 50th anniversary.
Many African-American youth today, do not feel the 'emotional connection' to the civil rights movement for equality or about the struggles from what they read in social studies class. When I had taught Middle School, I saw that the school curriculums shelter the students from the truthful history of segregation. The students have no understanding of what their predecessors went through in the 60s, to force integration in the South. This past January a film called Selma was released for the young generation of Americans to learn a pivotal lesson as to what had happened 50 years ago in Selma, Alabama.
As a Freedom Rider, civil rights icon and a visionary, Lewis has taken it as his life's mission to take back Americans to the roots of the civil rights movement. He and the other riders braved unimaginable humiliation in their struggle against racism for the future generations to live a life of equality that was envisioned by Martin Luther King, Jr. If Lewis and others didn't dare to take those buses for freedom, there perhaps will still be segregation in America.
Rep Lewis also focuses on human rights issues. He advocates equality for all minorities, and has made immigration a new civil rights battle. He has been trying to keep the movement of equal rights alive by sensitising all the young American people about present day-racism. In a world of difference, he urges them to take on a different kind of bus ride -- in fighting prejudice, and hate crimes. He wants the students to have respect for diversity.
What is most astounding about Congressman Lewis is his capability to reconcile with a life-changing episode. He rose above the dreadful experience, and his resilience shows that he saw a bigger need to educate and change the customs and the laws of the land. To resolve the issue of race and for the Americans to have an understanding of the dark past of division and separation bypassed his need for seething in anger.
In his own words, why he forgave his abuser: "If we are to emerge unscarred by hate, we must learn to understand and forgive those who have been most hostile and violent towards us." Also the in-person apology on Wilson's part has opened up a 'grand canopy of human togetherness'-- out of hate grew tenderness. Such an unbelievable reunion restores one's faith in the power of grace and love.
One can take courage from John Lewis and Elwin Wilson, and know that every human being has a voice, and he/she can be a champion for change. With the Freedom Riders, John Lewis stood up to injustices in a peaceful, nonviolent Gandhian way. Elwin Wilson's ability to redeem himself can also be an important learning lesson for all of us.
Zeenat Khan is a columnist and a fiction writer.
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