Entrenuity salutes Rep. John Lewis and Rev. C.T. Vivian, two heroes in the longstanding struggle for racial equality and justice, who entered their well-earned rest July 17, 2020. Their enduring calls to "be optimistic, be hopeful, keep going" and their faithful examples of persevering through trials inspire us to never "get lost in a sea of despair."
Regarding the suffering they endured for the cause of justice, Lewis wrote in 2012, “As we participated in protest after protest, sit-in after sit-in, where crowds of uncontrollable angry people swarmed around us yelling and jeering, where we were beaten with billy clubs, lead pipes, trampled by horses, and attacked by dogs, our faith was not dampened, as many people today, looking back on the history, often wonder. It actually grew in power and strength.”
Both Lewis and Vivian survived vicious beatings and personal injury during their crusade for social justice, each nearly losing his life in separate brutal attacks. Yet their faith held firm. Indeed, their activism seemed to be the very extension of their faith. Lewis shared in 2004, "When we’d go out to sit in or go out to march, I felt, and I really believe, there was a force in front of us and a force behind us, ’cause sometimes you didn’t know what to do. You didn’t know what to say, you didn’t know how you were going to make it through the day or through the night. But somehow and some way, you believed – you had faith – that it all was going to be all right.”
Lewis and Vivian represented the highest hopes and ideals for this nation to reach the promise of ''all men created equal." They never gave up, even they only got to see a portion of that ideal realized in their lifetimes, at great risk and cost to themselves. May the Lord raise up others to bravely take their place while there is yet need of them!
Entrenuity is committed to causing "good trouble" for the sake of equity and justice in the footsteps of these great men.