John Lewis a Life with David Greenberg

Summary

Podcast Summary: "John Lewis a Life"

Podcast Title: Here's Where It Gets Interesting
Host: Sharon McMahon
Guest: David Greenberg
Episode: John Lewis a Life
Release Date: October 28, 2024

In this compelling episode of Here's Where It Gets Interesting, host Sharon McMahon engages in an in-depth conversation with historian and author David Greenberg about his latest book, "John Lewis A Life." The discussion delves into the life, legacy, and enduring influence of John Lewis, a pivotal figure in the American civil rights movement and a revered congressman.

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Introduction to John Lewis

Sharon McMahon kicks off the episode by expressing her enthusiasm for David Greenberg’s new book, highlighting John Lewis as a transformational figure whose story deserves broader recognition.

Sharon McMahon [02:10]:
"If you've never heard of John Lewis before, sit tight because you're about to. Let's dive in."

David Greenberg provides a comprehensive overview of John Lewis, emphasizing his role as a central figure in the 1960s civil rights movement and his subsequent decades-long career in Congress.

David Greenberg [02:36]:
"John Lewis was one of the great political figures of our times... He was a truly courageous and heroic figure in the 1960s... to rise to such heights and influence is really an astounding story."

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John Lewis's Early Motivations

McMahon probes into what drove John Lewis from a teenager willing to risk his life for equality to a leader of the civil rights movement.

Sharon McMahon [05:15]:
"What is the animating force behind his early career in the civil rights movement?"

Greenberg explains that Lewis's sense of moral conviction against segregation and his upbringing in poverty fueled his dedication. Influenced by Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis embraced nonviolence and collective action.

David Greenberg [05:20]:
"From even a very young age, he had a real sense of conviction that the system of formalized segregation in the south was just morally and ethically wrong... He just, from an early age, was determined to try to fix the system."

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Researching the Biography

Sharon McMahon delves into the extensive research David Greenberg undertook to craft the biography, highlighting the depth and originality of his work.

Sharon McMahon [11:56]:
"Tell me what yours is."

Greenberg describes interviewing nearly 300 individuals, including prominent figures like President Clinton and President Obama, and accessing previously untapped archival materials and oral histories. The author recounts obtaining a vast collection of documents from a fellow historian, Archie Allen, which significantly enriched his research.

David Greenberg [13:53]:
"I was able to get close to John Lewis through both the documents and the interviews in a way that I think I'd never really gotten this deep with any historical figure I'd studied."

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John Lewis in Congress

The conversation transitions to John Lewis's political career, exploring his initial years in Congress and how he began to leave his mark.

Sharon McMahon [24:19]:
"Why doesn't he want to simply live a quiet life? What makes him want to subject himself to Washington, DC?"

Greenberg explains that Lewis viewed politics as the next frontier for advancing civil rights, influenced by mentors like Bayard Rustin and supported by his wife, Lillian Lewis, who encouraged him to pursue higher office.

David Greenberg [24:30]:
"He saw politics as where you could get your hands on the levers of power to make changes."

Lewis strategically joined committees like Transportation and Interior, using his position to influence significant projects and preserve civil rights legacies, such as making the Selma to Montgomery trail a national park.

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Becoming the Conscience of Congress

The discussion highlights how John Lewis evolved into a moral authority within Congress, earning respect from colleagues across the political spectrum.

Sharon McMahon [29:26]:
"How does he evolve to become the conscience of the United States Congress?"

Greenberg notes Lewis's balanced approach of unwavering moral integrity coupled with political pragmatism. Lewis was both a principled advocate for nonviolence and an adept politician who knew when to compromise for greater good.

David Greenberg [29:42]:
"He really genuinely took his time and put in a lot of rumination in making big decisions... he also could be political. He believed in winning."

A poignant moment discussed is Lewis’s response to resistance against the Voting Rights Act, where he passionately defended its necessity on the House floor.

David Greenberg [35:12]:
"He puts up huge blow-up photos that he kept around the office, placards of him being beaten by troopers at Selma, and lectures his colleagues about why we still need the Voting Rights Act." [35:12]

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Legacy and Impact

Sharon McMahon reflects on John Lewis's enduring legacy, particularly his efforts to preserve civil rights achievements and inspire future generations.

Sharon McMahon [33:40]:
"We think about civil rights marches and we don't realize that John Lewis literally just died in 2020... Congress is still refusing to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act."

Greenberg shares intimate accounts of Lewis’s resilience, even in the face of terminal cancer, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the struggle for equality.

David Greenberg [35:52]:
"He imagined himself continuing the fight... He really didn't get back to Congress much, but he did get to the House floor, showing his dedication until the very end."

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David Greenberg's Motivation

McMahon asks Greenberg why he chose John Lewis as the subject of his biography, given the multitude of influential historical figures.

Sharon McMahon [42:24]:
"Why John Lewis out of all the people you could have researched?"

Greenberg responds that amidst the political turmoil of the Trump administration, he sought to highlight a figure embodying the principles of racial equality and nonviolence. He saw Lewis as a counterbalance to the divisive politics of the time.

David Greenberg [42:33]:
"I thought this would be a way to do a biography of a very important, influential historical figure to grapple with these questions of race and racial equality."

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Conclusion and Final Thoughts

As the episode wraps up, Greenberg shares his aspirations for readers, hoping they gain a profound appreciation for John Lewis's multifaceted legacy and are inspired to uphold his vision of a beloved community.

David Greenberg [44:30]:
"I want them to remember John Lewis and take the measure of this man... The ideals that he fought for, nonviolence and integration, that vision has kind of fallen on hard times. If his legacy can help keep it alive, that would be wonderful."

Sharon McMahon concludes by emphasizing the importance of recognizing and honoring John Lewis's contributions to American history and civil rights.

Sharon McMahon [46:43]:
"Racism and bigotry do not just impact the community that is being targeted; it negatively impacts all of us. And I think he saw that absolutely."

David Greenberg reinforces John Lewis's inclusive vision, highlighting his belief in a shared humanity that transcends political differences.

David Greenberg [46:07]:
"John Lewis saw his fight as fighting for all of America and for all of us globally. He became a light and a beacon in many other countries too."

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Key Takeaways:

• John Lewis's Dual Legacy: As a fearless civil rights leader and a dedicated congressman, Lewis's impact spans grassroots activism and national legislation.

• Moral Integrity in Politics: Lewis exemplified how steadfast moral principles can coexist with political pragmatism, earning him respect from diverse political allies and adversaries.

• Enduring Inspiration: Lewis's life underscores the power of nonviolence, forgiveness, and the collective effort required to effect meaningful social change.

• Comprehensive Research: David Greenberg's biography benefits from extensive interviews and newly accessed archival materials, offering a nuanced portrayal of Lewis's life and character.

This episode serves as a profound homage to John Lewis, encouraging listeners to reflect on his enduring influence and the ongoing quest for equality and justice in America.

Transcript

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[Sharon McMahon]

Hello friends. Welcome. So delighted to have you with me today. My guest has written a book that was on my like immediate add to cart list as soon as I saw that it was in pre order and the book is called John Lewis A Life. And I'm so excited to be talking to David Greenberg. This conversation is just, it's real good, y'all. If you've never heard of John Lewis before, sit tight because you're about to. Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon and here's where it gets interesting. Well, I'm really excited to be joined today by David Greenberg. Thank you for being here today.

[David Greenberg]

Oh, well, it's my pleasure. Thank you.

[Sharon McMahon]

And thank you so much for your incredible work on a really epic portrait of a fascinating man. So I wanna start. First of all, not everyone knows who John Lewis was and we're going to fix that right now in this episode. But if somebody has never heard the name John Lewis before, tell us a little bit more about him.

[David Greenberg]

Well, John Lewis was really, we can now, see, just a few years after his death, one of the great political figures of our times. He was a central figure in the civil rights movement of the 1960s as a very young man. I mean, starting as a teenager, as a college student, he became involved in the famous sit ins to desegregate the lunch counters in the south and the freedom rides to desegregate travel. He spoke at the march on Washington at age 23. And maybe most famously, he led the march in Selma, Alabama for voting rights, which led to his getting beaten within an inch of his life, which was filmed and shown on television. And that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act. So he was a truly courageous and heroic figure in the 1960s. Then, rather amazingly, he has this incredible second act. You know, a lot of figures from the movement went on to do very admirable things, but sort of in a lower profile way. He becomes a congressman representing Atlanta starting in 1987, and for more than 30 years becomes this really powerful voice for liberal values, for racial equality, but also for a whole host of important causes. And he becomes known as the conscience of the Congress because he's the one who people turn to and they say, especially as he gets older and there's younger members coming into Congress, how's John Lewis going to vote? You know, that's going to influence how I'm going to vote because they trust his moral compass. So all in all, a really epic career. And for a man who rose from poverty in Alabama, one of 10 children of sharecroppers, to rise to such heights and influence is really an astounding story.

[Sharon McMahon]

It truly is. I have a book and I mentioned John Lewis, and it's certainly not a profile of John Lewis, but people who are listening to this will be able to read it and see what the connection is. But he has long been a figure who I've been fascinated by. And I would love for you to tell everybody who's listening what makes John Lewis tick? What makes him a teenager who decides, listen, I am willing to leave it all on the field. I am willing to put my very life on the line. You know, like it's more than just, oh, I believe people should be equal. Because many people believed that, right? He was not unique in that belief. But what is it that is the animating force behind his early career in the civil rights movement?

[David Greenberg]

Well, from even a very young age, he had a real sense of conviction that the system of formalized segregation in the south was just morally and ethically wrong. As a boy, he would have to sit in the balcony at the movie theater in Troy, Alabama, when white kids could sit in the main seating, he would, at the drugstore, have to take his ice cream and eat it outside rather than sit on the inside. He saw these injustices, and they rankled. And his parents, who struggled and were just trying to make a good life for their kids, you know, as farmers, and his father also drove a bus. They said, don't rock the boat. Don't get in trouble. We're trying to make a good life for you. But he just, from an early age, was determined to try to fix the system. And even as a teenager, he heard Martin Luther King deliver sermons on the radio. And King, who's only about 10 years older than Louis, really became this inspiration. And then as they got to know each other some years later, you know, a real mentor and guide for him. And so he really tried to live his life along those principles that King was famous for, for non violence, for rising to our better selves, and for creating an integrated movement of people of all races to fight for equality.

[Sharon McMahon]

One of the things that I'm struck with when it comes to the civil rights movement is how few people actually believed they were equipped for the job. How few people felt like, listen, I have had the schooling, I've had the training. I have the right stuff. In fact, most of the people didn't feel that way. Even Martin Luther King frequently questioned his own abilities, frequently becomes very depressed. People talk Martin Luther King out of going to a psychiatrist, even though he kind of wants to, because they're afraid of what the psychiatrist will uncover and how that might be used against him by his enemies. So many of the people who made an incredible difference, who. Who changed the course of history, which John Lewis did, felt very ill equipped. And I'm wondering what your take on that is. Did John Lewis feel like I'm the man for the job?

[David Greenberg]

Well, I would put it this way. He was probably more than anyone I've met or encountered in historical research, an incredibly humble man. Even as he became a big deal congressman, he still remained, as his chief of staff told me, deep down, the little boy from the farm. One time he met the queen of England, and he came back to the office saying to his staff, can you believe I met the queen of England? He was not full of himself in any way. Very humble, but at the same time, he really believed it was incumbent on ordinary people like himself, as he saw himself to take up this task, that the job of fighting segregation, of fighting racist structures was a collective Task. It was a movement, and movements needed charismatic leaders like Dr. King, but they also very much depended on ordinary men and women. And there are so many of these men and women I talked to who were a part of the fight at Selma or the part of the fight in Nashville. And he really just saw himself as one of them. And yet by doing it year in, year out and that just persistence, I think that as much as anything, really separated him and distinguished him. It's just staying in the fight year in, year out.

[Sharon McMahon]

You know, that's such a good point that you make, and I think it's one that's really relevant today, is that, yes, he was always a humble man. He did not think of himself in grandiose terms, but he believed it was important for ordinary people to do the work. And I think so often we're just kind of waiting for somebody to ride in on a white horse and be like, I got the plan. Follow me this way. I have the plan, y'all. When in reality, his entire life embodied this ethic of, we are the plan, the plan is us. And, man, if that is not a lesson that we still need today.

[David Greenberg]

Yeah. And it took the form of voting. It's interesting to discover when the idea of a voting mobilization drive was first proposed. John Lewis was against it because he thought this was the Kennedy administration's way of diverting attention from what they called direct action techniques, like the freedom rides, like the sit ins, which are really directly challenging segregation. But over time, he came to appreciate how important the vote was. And in this interregnum between his civil rights years and the congressional years, he led a group called the Voter Education Project, and over six, seven years, helps to register millions of African Americans across the south who had formerly been disenfranchised. And their votes changed the nature of politics in many of these Southern states, and even at the presidential level. And so in his later years, he would always go out and say, you must vote. He would say, it's kind of a funny line. Vote like you've never voted before. And he felt that even though each person could say, well, I'm just one person wants one vote, the collective power of that could work wonders.

[Sharon McMahon]

So true. So true. I want to know a little bit more. Again, having just spent three years writing a history book, I know a little bit about what it takes to write a book like this. But, man, the work that went into this one is next level. First of all, give us an overview of, like, how long did this take? What did you have to do to get access to this information. I think people think that it's like writing a term paper, just longer. You just Google, what did John Lewis think about voting? And then you read some articles, and then you summarize it. No, it is not writing a college term paper. You're doing so much original research. I want to hear, like, what did it take to come up with the material to write a portrait like this?

[David Greenberg]

Well, look, it was really a privilege and a labor of love to be able to write John Lewis's biography. And it's not an authorized biography. I had full editorial control, but I did, at the beginning, want his cooperation. And it took me probably a year to get a meeting with him. When I did, he had just been doing the super bowl coin toss, sort of this great American moment, the super bowl. And he was on his way to Los Angeles to do the Oscars to introduce green book. So I was wedged in between two peak John Lewis moments. But he gave me his blessing and said he would cooperate. And it opened doors so I could talk to his family, his staff. I interviewed close to 300 people for this book. President Clinton, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, as well as people from the civil rights years, people from his Atlanta years. I also got material from all of these archives, and nobody had really mined these archives before, where you have what historians call oral histories. Somebody who sat down with John Lewis in, like, 1968 and spent a full day interviewing him while his memory was still fresh about all the events of the movement. People hadn't used these before. And then on top of that, I found out about friends of his who had letters, who had papers. One guy who had even started a biography of John Lewis named Archie Allen, and amassed all of these papers. And after my badgering Archie for a few years, I get a call one day. He says, I'm at the post office. Can I have your credit card number so I can ship you three bankers boxes full of 17 binders of material. You know, a gold mine for a historian.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, no kidding. Can I have your credit card number? That's hilarious.

[David Greenberg]

I had told him. I had said, archie, you know, if you ever want to send it to me, I'll pay for it. Like, you don't have to foot the shipping bill. And this was just a treasure trove. So I was able to get close to John Lewis through both the documents and the interviews in a way that I think I'd never really gotten this deep with any historical figure I'd studied, and it was just incredibly rewarding.

[Sharon McMahon]

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[Sharon McMahon]

Tell me more about how you organize 300 interviews. Just the source material alone has to be kind of overwhelming. And every author has their own little system of how they keep things organized. Tell me what yours is.

[David Greenberg]

I do use one of these tools. It's called Zotero. It's popular with historians. It's an online database. And I could upload all of my interviews. I could upload all of my newspaper articles. I mean, I had a database of probably 3 or 4,000 newspaper and magazine articles from over his 80 years. And I had a wonderful research assistant, a young woman named Catherine Tighe, who kind of managed the database for me, helped with tagging it. But a lot of it, really, as hard as it is, you have to keep in your head because you're getting to some section, say, the March on Washington, you're like, oh, yeah, who was that colleague of his from sncc, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who gave me that story of revising the speech up in the Harlem office of Bayard Rustin or something like that. So some of it, you just have to kind of stay in the flow. And by working on it at least a little bit each day, you sort of keep it fresh and keep your mind attentive to where all your different material lies.

[Sharon McMahon]

Are you somebody who has a very routinized writing skill schedule where you're like, when I'm writing a book, I work for two hours a day, or I write five pages? Or are you a. Like, I work when the fates conspire and when I feel the spirit move me?

[David Greenberg]

Well, on this book, it was the first book where I tried to do this. Once I started writing, I wanted to complete at least the first draft of one chapter each month. And I forget how many chapters it has. It's something like 28. So that's a lot of months. And of course, there was time spent just researching and interviewing before I hit that stage. And I was lucky. You know, I'm a college professor, and I was the beneficiary of a couple outside fellowships, which allowed me to take a couple years off from the teaching load so I could again stay in that groove and do some writing every day. Some days it might be interviews in the morning, writing in the afternoon. Other days it might be writing in the morning and then doing online database searching of New York Times Wall Street Journal articles in the afternoon. So every day is a little bit different. But I tried to be consistently making progress because in the past I'd written some other big books which took even longer. So I consider this a small victory for speed.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, it's easy to just get bogged down and be like, I'm not ready to start that yet. But actually having the little bit of daily progress I feel like motivates you to keep making progress.

[David Greenberg]

And one thing I learned, one of my first jobs in journalism before I went and got my history PhD, was working for Bob Woodward, the great reporter at the Washington Post. He always said, start writing before you think you're quite ready. Which is also advice I got from Kai Bird, a wonderful biographer who led a center where I had a fellowship. And I think there's a lot of wisdom in that approach because you can wait and you can hoard and husband more material, but you're just going to drown in it. You got to start, and it's only by writing that you then see what you're missing. And you see, ah, I really do need to go to this archive. I do need to interview that person. So there was a lot of that toggling back and forth between the writing and the research as you go along.

[Sharon McMahon]

I remember talking to Kai Bird about this too, where it's like, when you love to research, which a history professor does, otherwise pick a different field. Right? You know, like this is not the right field if you don't like to research. When you love to research and you love your subject and you're finding new and interesting things, you get this sort of neurotransmitter hit by, like uncovering something really good. And like, you could just research forever and never actually, aside from having binders of information, you could never actually write anything because there's always another rabbit hole to go down.

[David Greenberg]

Right?

[Sharon McMahon]

What about that one thing? Oh my gosh, that one guy. It just never ends. And you have to have the discipline to actually start typing.

[David Greenberg]

And sometimes you find things that are exciting to you and you wonder, are these gonna be exciting to other people? I found this really amazing speech given by John Lewis about Barry Goldwater, who was in 64, the kind of far right Republican nominee for president. But it wasn't dated, it wasn't connected. There was nothing about it in the literature. But I finally found one sentence in it that matched up to a news article about John Lewis in the summer of 64, flying out to San Francisco for a protest at the Republican convention. Everybody thinks, oh, 64. He was in Mississippi that summer, but he had taken out time to go protest Goldwater. And I was able to put this together through kind of triangulating these multiple different sources. I was really excited about it in the book. It's going to be a paragraph about an interesting speech that Lewis gives in San Francisco. But I don't know that the reader is going to feel the same excitement I did.

[Sharon McMahon]

Oh, I totally get it. I really do. Where you're like, you are never going to believe what I figured out. And the reader is like, that's nice. You know, like I. That's great. You figured it out.

[David Greenberg]

And ideally, you know, you want the reader to have a pretty seamless experience. So I don't call attention in the book to here. I reveal for the first time X or Y. I'm trusting that there will be scholars of the Civil Rights movement who read this, who will sense that, who will pick up on what's new, and hopefully that will be appreciated by those who are in the know.

[Sharon McMahon]

Totally. Okay, I want to go back a little bit to what makes John Lewis want to get involved in politics. Why doesn't he have a sour taste in his mouth after everything he's been through, after all of the hardship he has suffered? Why doesn't he want to just light his connection to DC on fire and go live a quiet life under his own vine and fig tree? What makes him want to subject himself to Washington, DC?

[David Greenberg]

I think there are two things about John Lewis that lead him to a career in politics. You know, he had a mentor in the civil Rights movement, a man very famous at the time, I think, still well known, Bayard Rustin. And Rustin wrote an important article called From Protest to Politics. And at the time that the Civil Rights act was being passed, the Voting Rights act, there was the question, where does the movement go? And Rustin's answer, and Lewis's answer was, the next frontier is for African Americans to get involved in politics. Because until that time, there was very little black representation in Congress or very few, even big city mayors. And Lewis sort of agreed with this prescription that politics was where you could get your hands on the levers of power to make changes. He had, as a young man, been to the White House already to see Kennedy, to see Lyndon Johnson, so he kind of had a taste of it. And after he has a kind of parting of the ways with sncc, the student movement turns Quite radical. It turns against integration, it turns against nonviolence. And Lewis parts company, and he sees politics as the answer. But the other key part of the story is his wife Lillian. In 1968, Lewis had been working on the Robert Kennedy campaign for president, which of course ended tragically with his assassination right on the heels of Martin Luther King's assassination. John Lewis is depressed. He's actually in the hospital. His doctor says you need to sort of take a breather and get some bed rest. And Lillian, who John has just met a few months before, comes and visits him regularly. And then and there they decide to get married. She believes the sky is the limit for John Lewis. And in the 70s and the 80s, she's the one kind of constantly saying, you could run for this, you could be on city council, you could be congressman. Some people told me they thought Lillian believed John Lewis could have been elected president of the United States. She had such belief in him. But where John could be self effacing and humble, she felt he could and should always go for the next thing. And she kind of put some of the steel in his spine. It's a whole interesting story about her that I think isn't that well known outside friends and family that I really tell in the book.

[Sharon McMahon]

How does he react to becoming a member of Congress when he finally begins to gain access to those levers of power, as you mention, what was that like for him? Because it's not a universal experience. A lot of people who go to Congress think they're going to go there and make a difference, and then they realize this is not what I envisioned for myself when I ran for this office. So what does John Lewis think of being a congressman?

[David Greenberg]

Well, like a lot of congressmen, it takes him a little while to find his footing. He's initially taking a low profile. He kind of shrewdly gets on some committees, like including the Transportation Committee, which doesn't sound that exciting. But Atlanta is building up a very important airport. They're developing a strong public transportation system. So this is a way that he can help his home district. He also gets on the Interior Committee that deals with national parks. So he's able to do things like make the Selma to Montgomery trail, the march path from 1965, a national park. And that brings sort of attention. So he's finding ways, even as a junior congressman, to make a mark. And then I think he learns that people, at least to some degree, do know his story. They know about his heroism in the 60s, and this is actually to his political advantage. And he can sort of leverage that. So there are a lot of fights with Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. And when he goes into George Bush Sr. To the White House, Bush has just vetoed the first president to veto his civil rights bill since Reconstruction, and the Democrats are still trying to get it passed the second time. And Lewis kind of reads him the riot act and says, look, you're calling this a quota bill. Like, this is not a quota bill. We explicitly put language. We're not favoring quotas. And Bush eventually relents and signs the next version of the bill. And it's sort of John Lewis's. He's discovering his moral authority. The other key part about this is the Democratic leadership discovers his moral authority. So at first, in the 80s and 90s, it's Tom Foley, who was the Democratic speaker of the House, then later it's Dick Gephardt, and then finally it's Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer who really make John Lewis just a vital part of their leadership team.

[Sharon McMahon]

And he keeps at it for so long. He becomes such an integral part of Congress. I want to know, how does he evolve to become the conscience of the United States Congress? What has to happen for other people to view him that way?

[David Greenberg]

Well, I think part of it is he really genuinely took his time and put in a lot of rumination in making big decisions. I mean, sometimes it was an easy call. As a believer in nonviolence, he voted against most military expeditions, like both Gulf Wars. But at other times, he saw the complexities. So when President Clinton wanted to do something to stop the slaughter in Kosovo by Milosevic and Serbia, John Lewis came around and voted to support it. He had initially opposed it out of this sort of natural nonviolence, but he came to see that actually this was really necessary to stave off a genocide or a mass slaughter. All that said, he also could be political. And you don't survive 36 years in Washington without having some political good sense. He believed in winning. He knew when to compromise, when to sort of give up certain hopes or goals for a piece of legislation that were going to be unattainable in order to get something that was at least going to do some good. So he also learned, I think, earlier in his career, particularly on city council, he'd been seen as too rigid, too moral. And, you know, this is my position. I'm sticking to it, and I don't care if I lose the vote. You still saw that sometimes, but increasingly he came to think, okay, how do we win? You know, how do we win if not half a loaf? Some of the loaf, 2/3 of the loaf, whatever. And he became pretty adept at that kind of politics too.

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[Sharon McMahon]

C Details I think people don't realize how recent this history is. We think about civil rights marches and we think about looking at the black and white pictures of John Lewis and we don't realize that John Lewis literally just died. He died in 2020. This is all very near to us. As much as we would like to think that like, oh, we're so past all of our issues with voting. We're so past all of our issues with civil rights. Congress is still refusing to pass the John Lewis voting Rights Act. And what do you think he would say to that? What do you think his opinion of Congress refusing to take action on this would be?

[David Greenberg]

Before it was named for him, there were versions of this bill that he was pushing and advocating very strongly for. You know, he saw when the civil rights legacy and voting rights legacy was being threatened, and he took part in every time that that 1965 historic voting rights act was renewed. Because the way the bill's constructed, it needs to be renewed. First it was every five years. Then they got it to be every 25 years. And one time during the George Bush Jr. Administration, a Georgia colleague of his in the House, a Republican, got up on the floor and started saying, john Lewis talks about how we've put down the burden of race, how Georgia's making so much progress. So I'm saying we shouldn't still be subject to these rules under the Voting Rights Act. And Lewis didn't get mad at his colleagues much, but he was furious. Went back to his office, got these huge blow up photos that he kept around the office, placards of him being beaten by troopers at Selma, and puts them up on an easel on the House floor and lectures this gentleman, fellow Congressman Wesmoreland from Georgia, about just why we still need the Voting Rights Act. Really. I think one of his main missions in Congress was to protect, promote, preserve the memory of the civil rights movement, the legacy and the legal staying power of those important pieces of legislation.

[Sharon McMahon]

You mentioned too, that when he is diagnosed with cancer and he announces that he is diagnosed with cancer, that his phone just kind of blows up with text messages, that he gets like 154 text messages or some, you know, incredibly large number which shows how beloved he was to people, how much compassion people had for the fight that was ahead of him. But he refuses to quit Congress. He is like, listen to give a direct quote, which you have in the book. He says, I may miss a few votes during this period, but with God's grace, I will be back on the front lines soon. He didn't think that the struggle was over.

[David Greenberg]

He knew that it wasn't. And he lived for the struggle. I mean, being part of that struggle was what gave his life meaning and purpose. It's almost hard to imagine him retiring even with cancer. And I got an incredibly intimate up close account from his chief of staff, closest aide, Michael Collins, who very generously described when they go to the radiologist and getting the news and, you know, you're taken into this very intimate moment and it's amazing that it doesn't turn John Lewis off the path that he obviously is devastated to get this news, but, yeah, he imagines himself. And in the end, he really didn't get back to Congress much. He does get to the House floor, but then we have Covid. So, you know, everyone's afraid of infecting someone who's on chemo treatments and all of that. So it's a very poignant time. These last six months. We're also fighting an election for what John Lewis believes is the future of democracy, whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump will lead the country. So it just becomes this incredibly dramatic sort of final few months. And then, of course, the Black Lives Matter protest in the wake of George Floyd's killing unleashes another whole set of questions that deals directly with the various struggles he's given his life to.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah, you say in the book, I thought this was an interesting moment where after being diagnosed with cancer, he's on chemo, he goes back to the Hill, as you mentioned, for an hour to cast some votes. And you say when he entered the chamber, everyone clustered around him and everybody wants to show their affection for him. And people have to remind him, you know, no touching, no hugging. They can't afford to get somebody who's immunocompromised sick. And you say, Nancy Pelosi came by to say hello. So did Kevin McCarthy, who leaned in for an embrace only to hear one of his associates remind him, no hugging. And McCarthy says, I want to hug John. And people are like, you cannot hug him. And I just. I found that really interesting. That's very different than the Kevin McCarthy we see on TV. Obviously, he's out of Congress now, but very different than the speaker of the house Persona, Kevin McCarthy. I really want to give John a hug. Like, that's the vibe.

[David Greenberg]

It seemed like, well, John Lewis had relationships with a lot of people who he was diametrically opposed to on political grounds, but could get to know and care for personally. You know, he led these pilgrimages to Selma every year on the anniversary of that Bloody Sunday March of 1965. And he was especially kind of attentive and solicitous of the Republicans who would go, because it would be mostly Democrats. And so if there were a few Republicans, Sam Brownback went once. Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy. Lewis would check on them, like, are you okay? Make sure they and their family were up there with him at the front, because he really believed you have to reach across the aisle. This experience would be meaningful for anyone, but especially meaningful for people who weren't regularly voting for the civil rights legislation. The whole point was to reach them too.

[Sharon McMahon]

Right.

[David Greenberg]

He had those relationships and he could be very partisan. As I said, he was part of the Democratic leadership and could be quite the partisan fighter. But it coexisted with this real, just personal affection and even love for his Republican colleagues. It was part of his philosophy of nonviolence, which was really rooted in loving even the people you disagree with vociferously.

[Sharon McMahon]

You mention in the book somebody that I profile in my book, who is Septima Clark. I love her. She's one of my favorite people. And she is sort of an early teacher or mentor of John Lewis at Highlander Folk School. And she's also the same of Rosa Parks. And hearing this Kevin McCarthy story kind of reminds me of something that Septima Clark said at the end of her life, which is that I have learned that I can work with my enemies because they might have a change of heart at any moment. And John Lewis perfectly embodied that. You're gonna have to hold Kevin McCarthy back from giving me a hug because they might have a change of heart at any moment. He did not write people off or say we're too far apart like Kevin McCarthy. Give me a break. That's never going to work out. He had a different perspective than so many people today, which is to cut people out who disagree with you.

[David Greenberg]

There's this one story in the book. As a 21 year old young man on the Freedom Rides, John Lewis comes into a town called Rock Hill, South Carolina. There's a pretty strong Klan presence, pretty racist town. And they go to test the bus station that it could be segregated. So he gets off the bus, he wants to go use the white men's room, and a bunch of hoodlums there punch him out. And they punch out his colleague. Years later, watching the Obama inauguration, one of these men, a guy named Elwin Wilson, has this epiphany about how wrong he was and how he had wronged these people. And through a reporter, a local South Carolina reporter ends up making contact with John Lewis. Flies to Washington, apologizes to John Lewis in person in his office. I think ABC News is there. You know, it's gotten some attention. The men are in tears. And it took, what, some 47 years for that change of heart to happen, but it happened. And that kind of story is the kind of thing that makes you believe in John Lewis's belief in nonviolence, in love, in forgiveness. At a time when I think most of us, we feel we should hold on to some of these grudges. There are bad people out there. We feel a lot of anger these days. And it's not to say we shouldn't have our political passions, those are important, but that underneath it, to understand that we're all human beings, we all have that commonality under the skin was something John Lewis always understood at the core of who he was.

[Sharon McMahon]

I love that. What made you choose John Lewis out of all the subjects you could have profiled, out of all the people you could have researched? Why? John?

[David Greenberg]

Well, I started the book kind of in the middle of the Trump administration, and I had just written a book about political spin which sort of ended with the Obama years. And people were saying, oh, spin, you got to do a next chapter, an epilogue or sequel about Donald Trump. I even had the title Beyond Spin and this whole question of truth and lying in politics. But I was spending a lot of time, just as a citizen, reading the news, following things, spending enough time with Donald Trump as it was. I wanted to go in the opposite direction. And one day, while watching a documentary about Bobby Kennedy, I see John Lewis come on screen. I learned that he had worked on the 68 campaign. And I thought, you know, it's interesting. There's a lot about John Lewis. He seemed to be coming up in the news a lot himself. And I saw there was no biography of him. Now, I'd written a lot about American history, American politics, American presence. None of my books had really concentrated centrally on the question of race, which is really at the heart of the American story. So I thought this would be a way to do a biography of a very important, influential historical figure to grapple with these questions of race and racial equality and racial division that have beset America for so long. And I thought, well, the key is just then, if I can get to John Lewis and he's willing to kind of go along with the project, which after a little while, I succeeded in doing. So. It was really a matter of timing that in those Trump years, John Lewis seemed to be the anti Trump for me and for a lot of people, that's so interesting.

[Sharon McMahon]

What do you hope the reader, when they close the last page, when they put the book back on the shelf and they tuck something into their pocket that they carry with them moving forward. What do you hope that is? What do you want the reader to remember?

[David Greenberg]

Well, first of all, I want them to remember John Lewis, I think, and to just take the measure of this man. I hope that the book does justice to who he was in all his complexity, in all his Virtue in all his courage. And people are going to have their different politics. I think this is a book that can be appreciated whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. I mean, you don't have to share John Lewis politics on every policy issue to appreciate the magnitude of the man. So that I think is above all. But I also think the ideals that he fought for, non violence integration. So the notion of what he called a beloved community where we're all sort of equally treated and respected, regardless of race, creed, color, religion and so on, that. That vision, I think has kind of fallen on hard times. It's one many of us grew up with thinking of as the American creed. But, you know, if his legacy can help keep it alive, help nourish that set of ideals, that too would be a wonderful thing.

[Sharon McMahon]

Well, I really enjoyed reading your new book about John Lewis. Like I said, I've been looking forward to this one for a while because he's such an underappreciated figure in U.S. history. And I think the time is right for more people to know and appreciate John Lewis for what he did for all of us. Truly what he did for all of us.

[David Greenberg]

Absolutely. And John Lewis saw his fight that way. I mean, he did see himself as fighting for what he sometimes referred to as his people, African Americans, but he also saw all of us as his people. And he really believed, as Martin Luther King also said, this isn't just a fight for black people. This is a fight for all of America and for all of us globally. I mean, he took these values to South Africa, to the Middle east, elsewhere in the world, and really became a light and a beacon in that way in many other countries too.

[Sharon McMahon]

Yeah. Racism and bigotry does not just impact the community that is being targeted, it negatively impacts all of us. And I think he saw that absolutely. David, thank you so much for being here today. This was just a treat to be able to read your book and to be able to talk to you.

[David Greenberg]

Thank you so much, Sharon. It was a real pleasure.

[Sharon McMahon]

You could buy John Lewis a life wherever you get your books. If you want to support your local bookshop, you can head there or you can order from bookshop.org I'll see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to. Here's where it gets interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show that helps podcasters out so much? I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Parks and our audio producer is Craig Thompson. We'll see you soon.