[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 134 (Wednesday, July 29, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E696-E697]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      FORMER REP. CHET EDWARDS REMEMBERS THE LATE REP. JOHN LEWIS

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, July 29, 2020

  Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, on July 21, our former colleague, Chet 
Edwards, who represented Texas's Eleventh District from 1991 to 2010, 
wrote an op-ed in the Waco Tribune to share his remembrances of our 
friend Rep. John Lewis, who today will depart the Capitol for the last 
time before returning home to Atlanta for his funeral and burial. I am 
privileged to share Mr. Edwards's moving article about his friendship 
with Rep. Lewis and include it in the Record.

                  [From the Waco Tribune July 1, 2020]

                      How We Can Honor John Lewis

                           (By Chet Edwards)

       In his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln spoke 
     eloquently of his humility in the wake of great service and 
     sacrifice for our nation when he said: ``In a larger sense, 
     we can not dedicate--we can not consecrate--we can not 
     hallow--this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who 
     struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power 
     to add or detract . . .''
       Today, as I think about the passing of Congressman John 
     Lewis, I find it difficult to conjure the words to adequately 
     hallow his lifetime of service, sacrifice and courage.
       Our founding fathers embedded in the first sentence of the 
     Constitution the ideal of making ours ``a more perfect 
     union.'' In doing so, they sent a message to every one of us 
     in each generation that true patriotism is about making ours 
     ``a more perfect union.''

[[Page E697]]

       By that high standard, John Lewis was a true patriot. His 
     entire life was committed to bringing our nation ever closer 
     to the principle enunciated in our Declaration of 
     Independence that ``all men are created equal, that they are 
     endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . 
     .''
       At the age of 23, on Aug. 28, 1963, just before Dr. Martin 
     Luther King Jr. gave his historic ``I Have a Dream'' speech, 
     a youthful John Lewis spoke powerfully about the need to 
     ensure real freedom for all Americans. John led the Student 
     Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; rode in the Freedom bus 
     rides in the South; and on March 7, 1965, led the march in 
     Selma, Alabama, in support of a national voting rights act at 
     a time when black World War II and Korean War veterans were 
     being denied the right to vote all across the South. The 
     nationally televised image of John nearly losing his life 
     that day, of peaceful marchers being brutally beaten by 
     Alabama state troopers, awoke a powerful conscience across 
     our nation and led to passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. 
     It made our nation a more perfect union.
       I served in Congress with John Lewis for 20 years. For 
     eight years we worked together almost daily as two of the 
     four Democratic chief deputy whips in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives. Every time I was in his presence, I knew I 
     was in the presence of true greatness . . . and goodness. 
     John was a historic figure, one of the Big 6 of our nation's 
     Civil Rights Movement, but he was also one of the most 
     decent, kind and humble persons I have ever known.
       History will record that John Lewis made our nation a 
     better place, a more perfect union. I agree. But what I 
     respected most about John was that, despite all of the racial 
     hatred he faced in his life, there was not one ounce of 
     hatred in his body or soul. Not ever.
       One day in a conversation just off the House Floor, I asked 
     John how he kept from hating those who had mistreated him and 
     even tried to kill him. He told me that the real key to his 
     life, and to the Civil Rights Movement's progress, was the 
     ideal of Christian love--to love one's neighbor as thyself 
     and to even love one's enemy. John stayed committed to those 
     principles of his faith and to the cause of non-violent 
     protest, even when others within the Civil Rights Movement 
     criticized him for not supporting violence and when many 
     white Americans threatened him.
       Make no mistake. John Lewis was passionate about the cause 
     of justice; he was willing to go to jail more than 40 times 
     in agitating for change in America. But his actions were 
     always peaceful and he was always motivated by love, not 
     hate. I used to savor it when John would get a twinkle in his 
     eye talking to young people and encouraging them to get into 
     ``good trouble.''
       John Lewis was the conscience of Congress, and in 2001 I 
     saw the power of the bipartisan respect he had earned. In the 
     wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on our nation, 
     then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay offered a resolution on the 
     House floor that said it was the ``necessary duty'' of all 
     Americans to pray for our nation. As a person of faith, I was 
     concerned that prayer, a solemn choice between a person and 
     God, would be demeaned by Congress in declaring prayer to be 
     a government-mandated ``necessary duty.'' On a nearly vacant 
     House floor, I found John and asked him to speak against this 
     misguided resolution. John, never one to back off from 
     fighting for his principles, spoke eloquently from the well 
     of the House about his reverence for prayer and the 
     constitutional separation of church and state. In a testament 
     to the respect he had among his colleagues, we were able to 
     defeat this badly flawed resolution.
       As someone who will always cherish the blessing of knowing 
     John Lewis, I am thrilled that across America today 
     journalists and citizens from all walks of life are honoring 
     John with heartfelt words of praise. As I hear those well-
     deserved words about this great and good American, I'm also 
     challenged by the question posed by President Lincoln at 
     Gettysburg. After recognizing that we could not further 
     hallow the ground of those who died at Gettysburg, Lincoln 
     went on to ask how we could truly honor those who died there. 
     He said these powerful words: ``It is for us the living, 
     rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
     they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is 
     rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task 
     remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take 
     increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last 
     full measure of devotion . . .''
       John Lewis dedicated his life, and risked his life, in the 
     of racial justice and the right of all Americans to vote. I 
     will never forget when he spoke at the Waco Convention Center 
     and shared stories of the sacrifices made and lives lost in 
     the Civil Rights Movement and its effort to protect for all 
     Americans the fundamental right to vote. You could hear a pin 
     drop in a room of hundreds of people when he leaned over the 
     lectern and said, ``Given the sacrifices I have seen, I 
     cannot imagine anyone not exercising the right to vote.''
       John Lewis never thought that patriotism was to love our 
     country or leave it. As the son of Alabama sharecroppers and 
     as a child who could not check out books at his local library 
     because of the color of his skin, he learned that we should 
     love our country despite its imperfections and commit 
     ourselves to making it ``a more perfect union.''
       If we truly want to honor the life of John Lewis, we should 
     each be dedicated to his unfinished work of bringing about 
     racial justice in our community and nation and protecting the 
     right to vote for all Americans, for which he nearly gave his 
     life 55 years ago in Selma, Alabama.
       If we truly want to honor the life of John Lewis in an age 
     of political division and animosity, we should each do better 
     in honoring his faith in the power of love, in the power of 
     hope, in the power of respecting others. We should strive for 
     the ideal that he called the ``beacon'' of his life--the 
     ideal of a ``beloved community.''
       Here on earth, John Lewis marched with the people for a 
     divine cause. Now, in heaven, he will soar with the angels. 
     He will reap what he sowed here on earth.
       God speed, my dear friend. And thank you for teaching us so 
     much by the sermon of your life.

                          ____________________