On the recordJuly 21, 2021
1 year ago this week, our Nation lost a giant, a man with a righteous purpose and a remarkable legacy, John Robert Lewis, who dedicated his life to the cause of justice. From Troy, AL, to a bridge in Selma, to the Halls of this very Congress, he put his body on the line for every American's sacred right to vote. John Lewis never stopped fighting because he understood that democracy is a commitment we have to make again and again and again. As he wrote in the last days of his life: The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it. John Lewis understood the power and the fragility of our multiracial democracy, because he did so much to build it in his lifetime. At the age of 25, he led peaceful protesters on a march through Alabama to demand their right to vote. As the world witnessed, they were attacked, gassed, and beaten by police officers. They were attacked because the right to vote is power, and White supremacists feared the power of people of color exercising that right. But out of the pain and outrage over this Bloody Sunday came one of our country's greatest monuments to freedom, the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For nearly 50 years, the Voting Rights Act stood as a guardian of our multiracial democracy. It outlawed literacy tests. It prohibited voting procedures that would deny or abridge the right to vote on account of race or color. It gave the U.S.…
