Greatness

Instead of my usual plan to go to work this morning, where I get to  swim in a vast and lovely ocean of children's and YA books, I found myself sitting front row center in the massive auditorium of Evanston Township High School, my friends and book colleagues on either side of me.

And in front of me...
a mere four or five feet in front of me,
standing on the stage
was U.S. Congressman John Lewis.


John Lewis is a formidable Civil Rights leader, a tireless peaceful warrior whose belief in the power of peace and love among all people has remained unchanged since he first joined the  Civil Rights movement as a very young man almost 60 years ago.

This morning he was speaking to an auditorium filled to bursting with high school freshmen.  Each of them had been given--and had been studying in class-- signed copies of "March", a graphic novel trilogy about the Civil Rights movement written by  John Lewis and Congressional Aide Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell.

As I sat in the front row, well over 1000 students filled the seats behind me, each of them fully aware of the history and the power in the man on stage before them.

And it wasn't just due to the book.

Sometimes, if we are very lucky, we encounter greatness.  Not the transient greatness of money, power, fame or even necessarily skill.  I'm talking about the greatness of spirit.  Of inner strength. The greatness that is earned by keeping to a course and a path when pain, cruelty and misfortune tempt one to quit.

As John Lewis spoke today, I knew everyone in that room sensed that they were sitting before real greatness.  Congressman Lewis told that massive room of newly minted high school freshmen funny stories from his childhood that held hidden morals and foreshadowing of his own future.  He described being beaten bloody and arrested during peaceful protests and marches.   He  reminisced about his own encounters with greatness:  Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcom X, John F. Kennedy, Nelson Mandela...so many others.

But above all he kept asking, demanding, imploring the same thing (and I paraphrase from my hastily scribbled notes):

"When you see something that isn't right, that's not fair and not just, you have a moral obligation, a mandate, a mission to speak up and to act."  

He repeated this throughout his talk.  He repeated it as he answered the students who nervously took the microphone to ask him carefully considered questions.  

And he always followed it up with the same directives:  never give up. keep pushing, but do so with love and always in a non-violent, peaceful manner.  

In his talk Congressman Lewis alluded to the fact that right now we are seeing a repeat--or a variation--of the same kind of hate, the same slide into violence, the same intolerance and short-sightedness as there was during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's.   

His message, as simple and elegant as it is, is a message that has been repeated by people of vision, action and peace all my life.  And it is a message we desperately need to heed once again.

At the end of the event John Lewis waved  to the audience and thanked everyone, and then simply stood on stage as waves of students rushed down the aisles towards him .

I think this is the best picture of all--John Lewis surrounded --nearly swallowed up--by young students wanting--perhaps needing--to touch greatness. 

As do we all sometimes.

And I leave you with some homework, assigned by John Lewis and graded by whatever our shared future brings:



"When you see something that isn't right, that's not fair and not just, you have a moral obligation, a mandate, a mission to speak up and to speak out."