John Lewis: America hasn't been on the right track since MLK Jr.'s death

Raw Story

As a teen, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) decided to dedicate his life to fighting for equality and justice. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and organized, but since the death of the civil rights leader, Lewis said the country hasn’t been the same.

“When he spoke, he spoke to my heart. and to my soul. I love this man. He taught me how to stand up. To speak up and speak out and not to be afraid, and I felt that when he was assassinated that something died in America. And something died in all of us. And this country had not been on the right path since.”

If King was still alive today, however, Lewis said that the world would be a different place.

“If Martin Luther King had been alive, no, Dr. King would have been able to lead us to a different place,” Lewis said. “Our country would be different. And the world community would be different.”

Lewis also noted that he doesn’t think Dr. King would have met with President Donald Trump if he was here today. However, he also doesn’t believe that Trump would be president if King was alive during the 2016 elections.

“I met him when I was 18,” Lewis said. “I first heard of him when I was 15, and meeting him working with him and getting to know him, I think he would have took the same position that I took.”

“What happened [in Charlottesville] made me very sad. I cried,” Lewis confessed. “I don’t want to go back. I want to go forward. I want to continue to be part of an effort to make America one. Where we lay down the burden of race, the burden of hate and create one society, one people. We all live in the same house. The American house, the world house, and we must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, as Dr. King would put it, or we would perish as fools.”

He noted that people can’t allow themselves to be angry because Dr. King taught never to hate. “For hate is too heavy a burden to bare. Have the ability to forgive,” he quoted.

The full video interview is in the link as well. Not sure if he should've brought up Dr. King and whether or not he would've met Trump if he was still alive, but I do think he's on to something in his main point.

I think more progress has been made then people think.

60 years ago segregation was common place, today any and all republicans become deeply offended if they are called a racist.

it doesnt feel like progress but it is

When Doctor King lead protests in order to try to get folk to stop treating his people as sub human, folk reacted with attack dogs, public beats, and fire hoses. The cops showed up to dole out the beatings and unleash the dogs. They had no interest in attempting to restore sanity.

Charlottesville was a minority of hateful idiots looking baffled that the overwhelming majority of people outside their echo chamber were screaming "STFU you hateful idiots!" I do not see how ignoring the progress responsible for that distinction, not to mention Obama's election, respects Doctor Kings Legacy.

I was also always taught that Doctor King's assassination was a wake up call for America, as it held up a mirror to the awful ugliness within and forced the United States to either try to defend it or at long last admit that changes were necessary. Unable to look ourselves in the eye and defend it, we flinched and turned our gaze to change. There is no way a decent human being can call his martyrdom a good thing but at the same time it is pretty clear the 'individual' who assassinated him didn't silence Doctor King or halt his work. He quite simply did not have the power to do such a thing.

Today sort of seems like the wrong day to claim otherwise.

Things are waaaayyyyyy better now than they were in the 60's. Let's not kid ourselves here.

@nintendoboy16: This Lewis is overreacting and it seems to come from that he is still not past that Trump won and that his "side" lost. More than it comes from any actual problem.

Charlottesville was no worse than when the BLM movement or Antifa goes on a rampage and advocates violence.

seriously? no worse? yes it is.

you guys live in a fantasy land where you make up your own rules dont you?

'calling for violence' = 'actually running someone over with a car'

no its not the same thing

Congrats on missing what i wrote and missing that a confirmed BLM member killed 5 cops.

Not to mention the countless riots.

a confirmed BLM member killed 5 cops you say?

link please.

Go google Dallas shooting of 5 cops and also i'm sure you can find the video the shooter put up where he justifies his insanity in the name of BLM.

I found one article, did a search on 'black and came up with nothing.

So how is that connected to (As you say) 'confirmed black lives matter'

I am excited to see if we can get BLM on the same moral playing field as Nazis so if you could provide some evidence of killings that is connected to BLM that would be awesome step forward!

because we really need to lower the moral high ground for both sides, so we need to throw some murders into it to level it out some

Guess you weren't on twitter that day when a bunch of BLM supporters called him a martyr.

I can see where John Lewis is coming from, but however, I personally think the Black Community as of right now in this day & age has lost there ways after MLK was assassinated. All I see in news is Blacks killing Blacks, where's that Black pride presenting yourself as a decent black guy and not this thug stuff we see now. That's the kind of problem I see everywhere, black crimes have sure rise up for decades and when MLK was gone, so did the decent black man & woman!

Heck, when Barack Obama became president in 2008, I always thought we would see something good in changing the black community but nope, still the same old shit but however, Obama did prove you don't need to be White to become President, just be a nice, decent black guy who dress nicely and all it took for him to become President.

I would like it if Lewis can see why the black community has failed itself and should have learned from MLK.

@davillain-: It is generally a bad idea to make judgements about an entire ethnicity based on media coverage about that ethnicity. Our media is tailored to our existing preferences, it doesn't formulate them. It is an inherent flaw in profit driven media.

Exactly. I mean he even says that black crimes have sure risen over the decades when realistically crime in total has been falling for decades. It for sure seems like he has his own preset ideas and is looking for the media to justify those ideas.

Reminds me of this episode. Boondocks had some pretty powerful messages under all that satire.

ugh, emotional politicians. This is why the democrats lose

"If King was alive" and "America would be a different place"

Well, it's not, for better or worse. And whatever happened to martyrdom? Some would argue that King being assassinated immortalized not just him, but his cause. People that research and actually know what the man was all about know that he was no saint, and that he was simply a very loud mouthpiece for a coalition of civil rights people. Had he lived, well...I think things would have gotten worse.

And, you know, we did just have the first black president. That's not progress?

“If Martin Luther King had been alive, no, Dr. King would have been able to lead us to a different place,” Lewis said. “Our country would be different. And the world community would be different.”

That absolutely is true and the same goes for John Lennon and Bobby Kennedy, I think.

Not sure if it aired today or not, but I watched the new David Letterman series on Netflix and David's first guest was Barrack Obama. The interview featured a pretty lengthy segment with Rep. Lewis and the Selma bridge and reflection on Dr. King and what that march across it meant. And taking into account what Martin Luther King did during such a hate-filled time, it is even more of a shame what happened to him.

I was not and I would like proof of that.

I am willing to bet that never actually happend as you have described.

but its good effort to try and pull everyone down to the level of Nazi's that does seem to be the right thing to do.

what are they all fighting about exactly anyway? can you help explain that question?

I remember watching that episode from Boondocks. That's one of the prime examples if Dr. King was still alive today. He be ashamed as to how the black community acting nowadays.

As an outsider (I'm a Brit) with some understanding of history, I agree that America would certainly be a different place if MLK had never been assassinated, and equally (maybe more) if Malcolm X had not been assassinated. Both men, by the time of their assassinations, out grew the moniker of being black leaders or black activists. Malcolm X in particular, especially since coming back from Hajj and joining true Islam, had started to be more moderated in his speech, more willing, in fact, more wanting to work with other groups, black or other wise. It led to his historical speech at the Oxford union, somewhere the pre-Islamic Malcolm X may never have been invited for.

Anyway, if they had remained alive and live/died natural life spans, the identity of American growth would be very different. Since their deaths and those of other activists throughout the 60s and 70s, American youth movement has stalled and maybe died. In particular, within the African American community, men and women want to be the next Jay Z or Beyonce, they want to be gangster and hoes and bitches etc. Those were views, labels and ways of life that both MLK and Malcolm X would have opposed vehemently. Their communities would have been more politically and socially aware of their own problems and better equipped to deal with them.

My 2 pence on this discussion.

MLK would totally disown this dickbag if he was still alive.

Same thing with race baiting dumbasses like Al Sharpton.

Motive and tweets in one video.

AWESOME!

well done, so now you have successfully brought the moral high ground of the left down to the level of Nazis which clearly is a win for the Right (sarcasm)

So....now we can ask, what are they fighting about?

by the way...lowering the moral high ground of your opposition to match your level instead of rising the moral high ground of your camp is subjugating yourself to the opposition.

You wanted a proof and I gave you proof.

This isn't about your false dichotomy in politics.

What are they fighting about? A media boogieman.

so you dont want to talk about what they are fighting for?

you just want to say they are both equal and thats it, no other point?

and by the way...lowering the moral high ground of your opposition to match your level instead of rising the moral high ground of your camp is subjugating yourself to the opposition.

Yeah because America has gotten exponentially worse since the civil rights movement right? That is sarcasm.