Mother Jones: Lewis remark "undoubtedly true," Bernie's civil rights activism "brief and localized"

[Docreed2003]

89. I think your point is a great one...

For those of us who did not live through that era, it's far too easy to look at the high water marks and check off names like Medgar Evers, MLK, and John Lewis and call it good as a summary of that particular time in American History. I consider myself to be an exception to that because John Lewis has always been a personal hero, mainly because he rose to fame in Nashville and that proximity to my own upbringing resonated with me. I grew up in a family who was wholly supportive of the civil rights movement. My grandfather's grandfather was a Methodist minister who help to transport runaway slaves across the border from TN to KY. My grandparents were the exception to the rule in their era, but I'm no less proud of the things that they did, like having a country general store that was not segregated at the peak of Jim Crow. We champion the heroes of the struggle for civil rights, and rightfully so because many paid the ultimate sacrifice for those goals, but, we cannot forget that, at its core, the civil rights movement was a grassroots movement and there are far too many foot soldiers in that struggle to be named. I applaud Sen Sanders for what he did as a young college student, and I think he deserves all the credit in the world for that and to criticize his contribution is asinine. My mentor as a young adult was one of the founding members of the SCLC, and was white. He helped to escort the young children in Little Rock to school after integration. I'd wager that most folks on this board don't even know his name, but he had a significant impact on the struggle for equal rights. Most of us aren't in a position to be the Kings or Lewis' of a particular movement. The best we can hope for is contributing our part in our own sphere of influence, and I think that's what Sen Sanders did.