Despite the bigotry and brutality he endured, despite the continued failings of American democracy, despite the backlash that followed the election of the nation’s first black president, Lewis has maintained his optimism. And, as he said to me, “I’m still here,” (despite a diagnosis of stage four pancreatic cancer) “fighting the good fight.”
He remains a faithful adherent of a belief that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. popularized through a quote adapted from a sermon by 19thcentury abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker: “The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” King said.
In the time of Trump, though, Lewis’ optimism can seem out of place, the patience it preaches ill-suited to the challenges of resurgent racial bigotry, white nationalist terrorism and unrestrained xenophobia. Some progressives have complained that a belief in that long moral arc may breed apathy.
“The use of the quotation. . .carries the risk of magical thinking,” warned writer Mychel Denzel Smith in a 2018 piece in HuffPost. “After all, if the arc of the moral universe will inevitably bend toward justice, then there is no reason for us to work toward that justice, as it’s preordained.”
But that is hardly Lewis’ view. His entire life has been a struggle for that justice, a quest for a more perfect union, a campaign for the full equality that America has always championed in its mythology but never practiced in its civics or culture.
And a fuller, deeper look at the decades since he marched as a young man shows the power of nonviolent civil disobedience, the gains he and others gave us, the progress for which they sacrificed. I remember. I am old enough to testify to the changes wrought by the nameless thousands who marched, chanted, sang, prayed, took one knee or two, but never broke a window, set a fire or even raised a fist in retaliation.
In 1960, black motorists taking road trips were frequently denied access to white-owned hotels and restaurants and public toilets, even in the Northeast and Midwest. That’s ancient history for today’s traveling classes, black, white and brown. In 1960, about 43% of whites received high school diplomas while only 23% of black students did. Today, the gap has nearly closed: 83% of black students achieve high school diplomas, while 87% of white students do. In 1960, Black politicians were restricted to local offices in majority-Black communities. Now, there are thousands of Black elected and appointed representatives across the nation, serving as school board officials, mayors, county commissioners, state legislators, judges and members of Congress, where a Black man, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) is House majority whip. There are currently two Black men, Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.), and one Black woman, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), in the U.S. Senate, often referred to as the world’s most exclusive club.