Today on Sojourner Truth, we honor the lives and legacies of two icons of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States: C.T. Vivian and Congressman John Lewis.
C.T. Vivian - born on July 30, 1924 in Boonville, Missouri - was an activist, author, minister and lead organizer during the Civil Rights Movement, alongside the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. In 1947, Vivian took part in his first sit-in demonstrations, which successfully integrated Barton's Cafeteria in Illinois. Vivian co-founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference and helped coordinate sit-in protests against segregation in Nashville in 1960 and a historic civil rights march the following year. He also participated in the Freedom Rides, in which activists traveled on interstate buses across segregated states in the South. The Freedom Rides challenged the lack of enforcement of two Supreme Court decisions which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional. In 2008, he went on to establish the C. T. Vivian Leadership Institute. In 2013, former President Barack Obama awarded Vivian the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Congressman John Lewis - born on February 21, 1940 in Boonville, Missouri - served as the Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (known as SNCC) from 1963 to 1966. As a respected leader of SNCC, he helped organize the historic March on Washington in 1963, protesting racism and segregationist policies. There, he delivered an impassioned speech in which he was prepared to ask the question: Which side is the federal government on? In 1965, on a day known as Bloody Sunday, he was beat up with batons by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, resulting in a fractured skull. Like Vivian, Congressman Lewis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Obama, but in 2011. He represented Georgia's Fifth Congressional District in the House of Representatives from 1987 until his recent passing. Funeral services for C.T. Vivian are set for Thursday, July 23, at the Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Meanwhile, funeral services for Congressman Lewis have not yet been announced, but memorials are expected to take place in Washington D.C., Atlanta and in his birthplace of Troy, Alabama, according to BET.
Since their passing, there has been an outpouring of love for C.T. Vivian and Congressman Lewis. Respected sociologist and professor Aldon D. Morris described Vivian as one of his favorite civil rights warriors and Lewis as someone who personified the youth wing of the civil rights movement. In a statement addressing Vivian's death, Obama described him as someone who was always one of the first in the action and also as someone who absorbed blows in hopes that fewer of us would have to. Paying tribute to Lewis, Obama described him as one of my heroes, adding that he stood on his shoulders. The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, Co-Chair of the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, tweeted: CT Vivian was to the movement what a CT scan is to medicine. His critique of Americas racism was clear, penetrating & exposed the sickness of its systemic nature. Speaking on Congressman Lewis, Rev. Barber said he was faithful unto death to the beloved community. Mourning the death of Vivian, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said: Our city and nation lost an incredibly kind and courageous man today. Senator Kamala Harris also said Vivian was someone who dedicated his life to fighting and organizing against racial injustice. Lewis, who was the longest serving member of the Congressional Black Caucus, was described by the political body as the conscience of our caucus."
