Growing up in Troy, Alabama, as the son of sharecroppers, John Lewis, of blessed memory, lived a very sheltered early life. By the age of eleven, he had seen exactly two white people, and had no experience of America was truly like in places beyond his own home town.
And, then in the summer of 1951, he came here to Buffalo, New York, to spend time with his extended family. While visiting our incredible Olmsted parks, he saw something unbelievable, black and white kids playing together, a truly integrated society. While life in these parts has not always been perfect when it comes to race relations, and still isn’t for that matter, in that moment in time in the eyes of someone who would become one of the greatest civil rights leaders of our time, it was close to the Garden of Eden as anywhere he could ever imagine.
It was this trip that would later inspire him to follow the words of Martin Luther King Jr. and pave the way for the greatest march toward freedom since our people left Egypt three thousand years ago.
This week, we begin the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses recounts the long struggle our people undertook to find our way to the Promised Land. Facing pharaoh was only step one in a decades long war to break free from bondage. In this, the last book of the Torah, he offers up a long, extended speech recounting just how hard the journey had really been.
John Lewis’ journey that began right here sixty-nine summers ago was not a straight forward one either. And, as recent events have made abundantly clear, it is still not over yet. But, as Lewis reminded us many times in his lifetime, we must continue to be “bold, brave and courageous and find a way… to get in the way.” How blessed we were to have had such an inspiring leader in our midst. May many others take on his cry of freedom until freedom is finallyachieved in our lifetimes, if not in his.