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John Lewis’ call for change

by The 100 Companies
John Lewis' call for change
John Lewis and MLK Jr. meet with reporters after his speech. Lewis' original closing read, "We will march through the South, through the heart of Dixie, the way Sherman did. We shall pursue our own scorched earth policy and burn Jim Crow to the ground – nonviolently. We shall fragment the South into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of democracy. We will make the action of the past few months look petty. And I say to you, WAKE UP AMERICA!" (Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress)

He was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. But his youth did nothing to diminish his radical and forward vision.

At 23 years of age, John Lewis prepared an intense speech criticizing the Kennedy administration’s civil rights bill. In the initial version, he called the bill “too little too late” and posed the question, “I want to know, which side is the federal government on?”

Leaked to the press the night before, the leaders of the movement called for a more conservative revision. Even edited, the powerful speech laid an unassailable foundation for his storied career.

– Margot Calmar, The 100 Companies

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