John Lewis (1940–2020)

Civil rights leader John Lewis died Friday, July 17, 2020, at age 80.

The Democratic congressman, from Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Atlanta, was suffering from Stage 4 cancer.

An outpouring of salutes and appreciations came in for Lewis. Understandably so. And I have nothing negative to say about the work he did in fighting for civil rights, his marching with the reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968).

I will not put John Lewis on a pedestal.

It comes from Lewis having collaborated with the corporate Democratic Congressional Black Caucus PAC for a press conference on February 11, 2016.

This was two days after Bernie Sanders defeated Hillary Clinton, by +22 percentage points, with winning the 2016 New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary.

John Lewis cast aspersions on Sanders, who also marched with Dr. King, by saying “I never saw him[Sanders].” Lewis then said he saw Bill and Hillary Clinton.

This was a lie.

And I knew, with that egregious example, Lewis had definitely sold out.

John Lewis not only propped up but also endorsed nomination for Hillary Clinton.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by 36th president of the United States Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964. While that was going on, Hillary Clinton, born in 1947, was for Barry Goldwater, the losing Republican challenger in the 1964 United States presidential election. Goldwater, at which time a U.S. senator from Arizona, opposed the Civil Rights Act. He voted against it. Goldwater, who eventually become more favorable to equal rights by championing the 1981 nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court for Sandra Day O’Connor, lost that 1964 election in a massive landslide. Goldwater carried only six states: Arizona and southern states Alabama Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Goldwater lost so badly that 25 of the 26 states that backed 1960 Republican losing nominee Richard Nixon switched to the 1964 Democratic side to elect Johnson to a full term. (This includes Bernie Sanders’s home state Vermont. From the Republicans’ first presidential nominee in 1856 through 1988, Vermont carried Republican in all elections except with saying no to Barry Goldwater and yes to Democratic incumbent Lyndon Johnson in 1964.)

Lewis became an absolute politician. He was first elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1986. He succeeded Wyche Fowler, who was elected in that year’s midterm elections to the U.S. Senate.

Being an absolute politician—and a corrupt one at that—is what John Lewis was doing when he backed Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016. By doing that, he was screwing over especially his black constituents knowing that Hillary’s husband Bill, while he was in office as the nation’s 42nd president, created and delivered policies harmful to black citizens.

A true party man, John Lewis also became a Russiagater. After the United States presidential election of 2016, Lewis said of Republican presidential pickup winner Donald Trump, “I don’t see this President-Elect as a legitimate president. I think Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”

Black Agenda Report labels sold-out, much-trusted members of the Congressional Black Caucus—that faction as well as the Congressional Black Caucus PAC—as The Black Misleadership Class.

Black Agenda Report is a publication which has done—and continues to do—its research, to go along with its observations, and it regularly comes through with enlightening analyses and criticisms. Here are two recommended pieces over the last decade: The Black Misleadership Class Needs Unmasking and The Indecency of the Black Misleadership Class.

Black Agenda Report is not allowing the image—what has been made of it—of noble warriors-turned-corporate politicians’ pretty and heroic packaging to distract from reality. Neither will I.

John Lewis deserves respect for his involvement in civil rights.

No denial.

Respect, for that reason, is granted.

John Lewis, however, should not be excused for having sold out.

I do not, and I will not, mourn his death.


(Note: The next blog topic will publish Thursday, July 23, 2020, at 06:00 a.m. ET.)