“[John] Conyers, then Cummings, and now John Lewis. Each one is leaving a gap in their legacy and in what they contributed. I don’t know if it will ever be replaced. It places a lot of burden on those of us who are still living, it forces us to do more, ”Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.) Said in an interview Saturday.
“Each generation has its time,” added Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio). “As much as we mourn the passing of John Lewis, CT and all the others who were the leading voices in the movement, a new generation is emerging. I have seen these young people on the streets, I hear their leaders, and now they are finding a way to take his place. And we appreciate that. “
The CBC is a key faction within the House Democratic Caucus, and the group’s influence has only grown since its founding nearly 50 years ago. But like the Democratic Party itself, the high ranks of the CBC are full of legislators in their 70s and 80s.
House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (DS.C.) is about to turn 80. Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Calf.) Is 81 years old. Science Committee Chair Eddie Bernice Johnson is 84 years old (D-Texas). Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton is 83 years old (DD.C.). Other committee chairs are 70 years old, including Bobby Scott and Bennie Thompson.
This may not stand out in a party where presumed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is 77 and President Nancy Pelosi is 80. But those generational divisions are most acutely felt within the CBC, whose members often resort to moral authority de Lewis or Clyburn, who participated in civil rights protests in the 1960s and used the practice of non-violence to achieve political victories as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. advocated.
“Losing him now puts pressure on all of us he left behind to carry out his legacy, to take over, because this is a relay race, and he passed over to all of us last night,” said the president of the Black Caucus Congress. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) Said in an interview. “We all need to feel the weight of it.”
“When I think of John, I think of a scripture in Genesis … ‘There were giants on earth in those days,'” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), A pastor. “John, at a whopping 5’9,” was the tallest person in Congress and never, ever tried to draw attention to his height. “
In the 33 years since Lewis was first elected, black leaders in Congress have accumulated more power than ever. Clyburn and the President of the Democratic House Caucus, Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) are at the top level of the party’s leadership, and CBC members lead influential panels that include financial services, education and work, and national security. Before he died, Cummings was the chair of the Oversight Committee.
CBC’s ranks have also grown substantially, with nine new members added in 2018 alone. Many arrive in Congress with their own stories about police brutality, systemic racism, and the huge gaps between America’s hopes and its reality. That includes members like Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Georgia), who lost her son in a racially motivated murder and became a key voice in this year’s police reform debate.
“The Black Caucus of Congress is deeply mourning the wound of the painful loss of the legendary John Lewis,” Jeffries said in an interview Saturday. “We stand on his broad shoulders, inspired by his life story, his legacy, and the words of wisdom he imparted to us all.”
Lewis’s death is also a devastating loss for Congress. Lewis was one of the few members so revered that leaders and members of both parties stopped and listened to what he had to say even though they did not support his position. Cummings was that type of member, as was the late Senator John McCain (Republican of Arizona). The late Representative Sam Johnson (R-Texas), a hero from the Vietnam War who died in May, was also highly respected by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, despite conservative hard-line views.
Lewis’s influence was exhibited in a floor debate in 2012, when the then Representative. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) Proposed an amendment to cut funds for the application of voting rights. Lewis, who had been watching the debate from his Capitol office, quickly went to the floor to give a powerful rebuttal, recalling that “my friends, my colleagues” died for the right to vote.
Within minutes, that Republican returned to the floor with a full apology and then withdrew his amendment.
However, as American politics has become more overtly partisan in recent decades, so has Congress. The number of legislators who can rise above partisanship, or apparently want to, is reduced each year. A large portion of junior lawmakers seem more interested in scoring points on cable TV and social media than in legislation.
And the Republican Party, led by a populist president who is regularly criticized for openly upholding nationalist rhetoric, has also made it more difficult to make deals. As the Republican Party wobbled further to the right under President Donald Trump, Democrats have moved further to the left.
Lewis openly called Trump “racist” and boycotted the president’s inauguration and speeches before Congress, as did several Democrats. Lewis even refused to attend the 2017 opening of a civil rights museum in Mississippi because Trump would be there.
On Saturday afternoon, Trump tweeted: “Saddened to hear the news of the death of civil rights hero John Lewis. Melania and I send our prayers to [him] and his family.”
However, House of Representatives minority leader Kevin McCarthy (California), one of the many members who traveled to Selma, Alabama, over the years, to recreate the famous 1965 march on the Edmund Bridge Pettus was one of the many Republicans who offered high praise for Luis.
“It was a privilege to call John a friend,” McCarthy said in a statement. “I admired him and will miss him. His life and legacy of patriotism will last as long as the United States does. “
Clyburn, who was friends with Lewis for nearly 60 years, spoke fondly of his colleague and civil rights activist. The last wives of the two men, Emily and Lillian, were librarians and became close friends. Clyburn said he could sometimes hear them talking on the phone, gossiping about their famous spouses.
However, Clyburn said that he and Lewis understood that “the only constant in life was change,” and that it is correct for others to assume the cause to which they dedicated their lives.
“I know very well that I am leaving the scene soon, and I want to make sure that when I do, every young person who has been in contact he feels it is so much better that they have been a part of my life and mine, “said Clyburn.
