The message was clear and unequivocally about equal rights, including voting rights, undiluted by any special interests of those who might march with them. Marches were either silent or sung. Because of where many of the marches took place, there was comfort in numbers and in the understanding that each of us had been trained to remain nonviolent, no matter what.
In this matter, I had some of the Iowa City Quakers to thank: they had rehearsed us in being struck, spit on, and arrested. Until we could accept this tenet of nonviolence, we would be an unacceptable risk to the movement. We could not march in the South, or raise money, or deliver food and clothing, or help register Blacks to vote in the South until we accepted the tenants of peaceful, nonviolent demonstration. And therein lay a movement for social justice that took less than a decade to build, whose reverberations have been felt since then in legislation and Constitutional amendments.
John Lewis’ entire career as a public servant carries the imprint of the six principles of nonviolence espoused by Dr. King in his first book, Stride Toward Freedom. Lewis never lost sight of the changes that needed to come and of the power of the vote. He made a profound impression on me that persists to this day. I have tried always to be part of the change that he and I wanted to see. I have used my talents to write and speak and march for the democracy we still aim to perfect, as well as the range of social equity issues that challenge us 244 years after the Declaration of Independence
was signed.
I could not close without paying tribute to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who, through her arguments to the court, whether argued or later written as opinion or dissent, also fought for the soul of democracy. Both Ginsburg and Lewis exemplify what is meant when we talk about integrity: each had a core set of values and principles by which they made decisions and cast votes; each was conscious that decisions they made as public servants affected thousands; and both executed the duties of their office up until they died, committed to that self-evident truth that “all [men] are created equal.” It is up to us to carry forward that commitment to the soul of our democracy.
Annie Searle is an Associate Teaching Professor at the University of Washington, and the founder of the ASA Institute for Risk and Innovation, a Seattle-based research advisory firm.