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. 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 sit-in leaders. I had
known John 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 in the analysis, is that John joined the movement after
58 years of legal apartheid in America, the “separate but equal decision” in Plessy v. Ferguson,
Thurgood Marshall led the drive… to make apartheid illegal in 1954. Look up May 17, 1954 to
August 6, 1965.

[MC Note: This is the period between the Supreme Court decision on Brown v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas and the date President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of
1965.]

Let me put it this way: I asked Mrs. Parks (Rosa Parks) one day, why did you sit in? She said,
‘Well, we’re testing the effectiveness of nonviolence. And so I thought about going to the back of
the bus, but until Emmitt Till, I couldn’t go back.’ [MC Note: Emmitt Till was murdered on August
28, 1955. Rosa Parks was jailed for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus on
December 1, 1955.]

So, John joined Dr. King, who joined Rosa Parks. It was about protesting the law. It took us
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.

[MC Note: This references the time period between the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the
signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.]

The other thing is, the ‘65 Voting Rights Act was when 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. And then all
the rest. 18 year olds on campuses, Native American people. The birthplace of democracy is
Selma, Alabama, not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

MEGHNA: So, Reverend Jackson, your phone line’s 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 when John wrote to
Dr. King, and he’s the ‘boy from Troy’. Dr. King had joined the movement led by Thurgood
Marshall, the legal foundation, the huge decision. We were legally inferior until ‘54. 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. The day 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 mature 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. 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 SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference]. 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 organization … they joined a movement that
was already in progress… they joined the movement to see a greater conclusion, to get youth
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. John 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. C.T. sat-in in 1947 in Macomb, Illinois, eight years before
Montgomery, fourteen years before the sit-ins.

[MC Note: Rev. Jackson is referencing the sit-ins that Vivian led in Peoria, Illinois. See: C.T.
Vivian’s first professional job was as a recreation director for the Carver Community Center
in Peoria, Illinois. In 1947 Vivian lead his first sit-in demonstrations, which successfully
integrated Peoria's Barton’s Cafeteria, thereby winning his first non-violent, direct-action
movement.]

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 … and that’s why I urge those with Black Lives
matter to 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 federal protections. We must fight for the
Constitutional right to vote. If the Black Lives Matter movement gets cheated [doesn’t focus
on??] the Constitutional right to vote, it’ll mean the devil’s imprint in time.

We have 50 separate state elections — we don’t have a national election, we have 50 elections.
Each state has its own apparatus: one for Washington, one for Mississippi, one for Seattle and
one for Miami. We need a national election, with guidelines that affirm 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 state 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 was elected. 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. Matter of fact when they came to Atlanta, Dr. King discouraged
them from taking it further south. Danger, John took the danger. He was on a burning bus
before he was on a burning bridge.

I want to say something about George Wallace [then governor of Alabama]. George, we were at
prayer before he died. I met with him. George, he had more blacks in his cabinet at the time
than other southern governors. 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.’ It never occurred to him to disperse
the mob. He just beat the marchers. That was the kind of backwards confederate thinking we
were dealing with.

So, that Sunday, we didn’t anticipate the confrontation. Dr. King’s in his church in Atlanta,
Georgia. – [Rev. Ralph] Abernathy’s church in Atlanta, Georgia. When King heard, or got a note
at the pulpit, that the marchers had been beaten, he left the church and went to Selma.

John Lewis and Hosea Williams and Ms. Amelia Boynton. Don’t leave her out, Ms. Boynton, she
was the woman 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 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, along with Andrew Young, the co-chair for voting drives
this fall. He was the gift that never stopped giving.

I loved John so much.