Who Knows Where the Road Will Lead Us?

John Lewis and Edmund Pettus Bridge

John Lewis, congressman from Georgia has travelled a long road across the Edmund Pettus bridge and and beyond. Fifty years ago, as a young student, he and other civil rights marchers were clubbed down on as they tried to across the Pettus bridge in Selma Alabama. This weekend, fifty years later, as congressman from Georgia, he strode across the bridge hand in hand with the the President of the United States and a diverse crowd of people to celebrate the progress of civil rights in the United States. As the congressman himself has said repeatedly, not in his wildest dreams could he have anticipated on that fateful day in 1965 that he would be in the position he his fifty years later. Who knows where the road will lead us? https://johnlewis.house.gov/john-lewis/biographyCongressman John Lewis. Congratulations, Congressman Lewis!

 In reflecting on the unfortunate events on that Alabama bridge in 1965, I can't help thinking of how I, a young, naive student from Jamaica set out from Mexico City on a greyhound bus journey through several southern states headed for the march on Washington two years earlier. I arrived in Philadelphia and recounted my adventures, my older brother, himself a student also but more attuned to the realities of the time and place, told me I had taken grave risks and was lucky to be alive. He felt I had escaped harm only because people I interacted with "thought" I did not know how dangerous my actions were.  (I was sure he was overreacting and exaggerating.) Fifty years later, as I watch clips of incidents in Selma, I no longer think that. I finally understand why my brother was so concerned  on my behalf.


It is a delight to see Congressman Lewis and other survivors of the1965 march in the company of so so many others walking in safety where he and people of color once did at their peril   Who knows where the road will lead us? And it is a long road, indeed, that has no turning. Edmund Pettus Bridge. Congratulations, Congressman Lewis!