MEGHNA: I'd like to turn now to the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr.

He's the founder of the

Rainbow Coalition, a former presidential candidate and, of course, longtime civil rights activist
and icon as well. He worked alongside Congressman Lewis for decades. He was also, as
people should remember, with Dr. Martin Luther King Junior at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis
on the day Dr. King was assassinated. So, Reverend Jackson, welcome to the program.  

REV. JACKSON: Good to hear your voice, Meghna.

MEGHNA: So, Reverend Jackson, first of all, tell us, what is it that you will miss most in your
friend John Lewis?

REV. JACKSON: We’d been together since 1960, when we were both student leaders. I had
known him for 60 years. I miss being able to call him on the phone, or get a call from him. I’ll tell
you  one of the mistakes being made at that time was that John joined the movement after 50
years of legal apartheid in America America, begun with the separate but equal decision in
Plessy v. Ferguson. Thurgood Marshall led the drive… to make apartheid illegal, the effort
lasted from 1954, May 1954 to August 1965 (when the Civil Rights Act was passed). 

Let me put it this way: I asked Mrs. Parks (Rosa Parks) one day, why did you sit? She said,
‘Well, we’re testing the effectiveness and sanctity of nonviolence. And so I thought about going
to the back of the bus, but in the end I couldn’t go back’ … So, she joined Dr. King, who joined
Rosa Parks. It was about protesting the law. It took about eight years to get to public
accommodation from the back of the bus, in 1964. John joined and took it all the way to its
conclusion.

The other thing is, with the ‘65 Voting Rights Act, democracy was born in Selma, Alabama. Not
in Philadelphia — Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was about ideals. But only white male landowners
could vote. And there was no value in that. White women couldn’t vote. Blacks couldn’t vote.
And so out of Selma, blacks could vote for the first time in 85 years … The birthplace of
democracy is Selma, Alabama, not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

MEGHNA: So, Reverend Jackson, your phone lines are a little shaky here, so I just want to
recap a tiny bit. If people couldn't hear all of it, you talked about Plessy vs. Ferguson and you
essentially just gave us a history of the work and fight to expand that American ideal that you
were talking about. 

REV. JACKSON: The frame of May 17, 1954 to August 1965, is the frame in which John joined
the movement. John wrote Dr. King when he was a boy to go to Troy. Dr. King had joined the
movement led by Thurgood Marshall, the legal foundation, the huge decision to make a… we
were legal inferiors in 1954. The states’ rights barbarism abounded, and there were no further
protections from denying the right to vote, or putting us in the back of the bus. At the time Dr.
King spoke in Washington and John Lewis spoke, from Florida to Maryland, we couldn’t use a
single public toilet … John was a part of a struggle that had true meaning. Those who would
fight today must hook in to a struggle that has lasting value.

MEGHNA: To your point, Mr. Lewis was, what, he was 17 when he first wrote to Dr. King
because he wanted to go to what's now called Troy University. So I take your point very, very
well, Reverend Jackson. But what would you describe then? How do you view that, what we
should see as Congressman Lewis’ role in that bigger historical movement that you're talking.
REV. JACKSON: He joined the SLC. In 1960, sit-ins took place in Greensboro, North Carolina.
They were the first. Students formed SNCC at Shaw University in the spring of that year. I
hooked up with John in the fall of that year, 1960. And SNCC was connected to the other civil
rights organizations, but they were not focused on intergenerational… they joined a movement
that was already in progress… they joined the movement to see a greater conclusion: get
students marching around the country. And so John, with his courage and with his willingness to
suffer — he was the valedictorian of our class. I was a student in 1960 myself, but John was
valedictorian of our class. He suffered the most, endured the most. That was a long-distance
runner.

MEGHNA: A long-distance runner. Do you have a favorite memory of Congressman Lewis, that
you think sort of really epitomizes the kind of man he was?

REV. JACKSON: Well, you were talking about C.T. Vivian, dying the same day. C.T. moved
from Missouri to Macomb, Illinois, eight years before Montgomery, fourteen years before the sit-
ins. We started talking with guys who had been in that circle for a long time. I remember sitting
around talking about the history of our society … we were rooted in [on ongoing struggle], and
that’s why I say Black Lives matter should be rooted in an ongoing struggle. We got the right to
vote in ‘65, but then in 2013 the Roberts Court decapitated it, took away its sting and
protections. We must fight constantly for the right to vote. If the Black Lives Matter movement
costs us the right to vote, it’ll mean the devil’s imprint in time. It would cost us 50 separate state
elections — there’s not only a national election, we have 50 elections. We set up a national
apparatus: one for Washington, one for Mississippi, one for Selma and one for Miami. We have
a national mission, with guidelines informing about the right to vote. I hope that this movement
today will not focus just on police, but on voting power, because police patrol us — or they
control us. Politicians determine the behavior of the police; police don’t determine the behavior
of politicians. So politicians… for example in Minnesota where George Floyd was killed, I met
with the governor and met with the prosecutor from the county. He could do nothing about the
guy who killed George Floyd. Well, we were able to get Keith Ellison, the state Attorney General
— it’s a majority-white state and he’s the Attorney General — he arrested the four and charged
them. First time a white officer had been in jail ever for killing a black in Minnesota. Politics
determine police behavior. When a young man was killed in Atlanta, Georgia, [Fulton Country
District Attorney] Paul Howard charged him with murder. So, the focus on police to me is like the
epidermis. But politics is the bone marrow of this thing, those who legislate emerging priorities.

MEGHNA: I've just got a minute or two left with you, Reverend Jackson. I just want to ask one
more question. On Saturday, you put out a statement about Congressman Lewis. You said he is
“what patriotism and courage look like.” Can you just tell us a little bit more about the character
of this man that you knew so well?

REV. JACKSON: Well, to be willing to ride the Freedom Buses. I remember in the South when
all the bus drivers locally were white, and where the greyhound buses were white, and you had
to sit in the colored section. The Freedom Rides, which we used to call them, was a dangerous
mission. They set the bus on fire in Alabama. John was on a bus from Rochelle, South Carolina
and Alabama, it was a real risk to come to Atlanta to discourage them from taking it further
south. Danger, John took the danger now. He was on a burning bus before he was on a burning
bridge… George [McGovern?] at the time, he had more blacks in his cabinet than the governor.
So we talked, and I said ‘Why did you turn the dogs loose on all the marchers?’ And he said, ‘I
did them a favor.’ I said, ‘Favor?’ He said, ‘If I had not let the troops beat up the mob, the mob
would have been worse.’ … That was the kind of backwards confederate thinking we were
dealing with. So, that Sunday, we didn’t anticipate the confrontation… John Lewis and Ms.
Amelia Boynton. Don’t leave her out, Ms. Boynton, she was the one with the Dallas County
Voters League. She invited Dr. King to Selma in December of that year. Dr. King was there as a
guest of the Dallas County Voters League. Now, there are some pieces here… John was on a
sure horse, a workhorse. He was a hero, not a champion. A champion is when they ride the
peoples’ shoulders. Heroes are when the people ride their shoulders. Who rode John’s
shoulders on the bus? Who rode John’s shoulders during the Voting Rights Act? John was the
gift that kept on giving. I remember him a couple of weeks ago, and John at that time agreed to
be the co-chair of the draft of the Voting Rights [bill] for the fall. He was the gift that never
stopped giving.

I loved John so much.