“Well done good and faithful servant.” Matthew 25:21

I have always been inspired by John Lewis and his work with the Civil Rights Movement.  I was especially touched watching the one horse carriage carry his body over the Edmond Pettus Bridge one last time.  It was so profound.  I was also touched to see all of the Alabama state troopers who lined the streets to salute the carriage as it passed when 60 years before he was brutally beaten by the state troopers.  His family was worried for him when he worked with the Civil Rights movement.  They didn’t want him to get in trouble.  But he knew in order to make change, he needed to get into trouble…good trouble.

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

As I watched John Lewis’ body lie in state in our nation’s rotunda, I remembered when I had been in that very place two years before with Jesse Jackson and Bishop William Barber.  We were protesting systemic racism and poverty with the legacy of Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign.  I witnessed as the two of them were arrested, along with twenty other activists, because they were taking the demands of the Campaign to Mitch McConnel’s office to end poverty and systemic racism in our country.  I watched “good trouble” taking place.  A week later, I was in Sacramento and chose to get arrested with the Poor People’s Campaign in our state’s Capitol due to the mounting gun violence in our children’s schools and the lack of gun reform. Although I did not know John Lewis, his brave actions rubbed off on me to take a stand for justice, and to do the right thing and to get into good trouble.  Representative John Lewis, thank you for a life well lived.  Rest in peace, good and faithful servant.