'I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. I just had to see and feel it for myself.'

[denem]

Documenting John Lewis’s last public appearance

John Lewis’s last public appearance wasn’t supposed to be public.

Those photographs of him overlooking the District’s Black Lives Matter Plaza, 57 years after he’d been the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, were meant to be snapshots of a private moment as the civil rights hero looked out on the newest manifestation of a movement for Black freedoms that he’d shed his own blood to advance decades ago.

...“He didn’t say anything, and with his mask on it was hard to read his facial expression, but you could see it in his eyes that this was a moment of reflection,” [photographer Gary Williams Jr.] said. “And I kept saying to myself as I’m taking these photos of him, ‘I wonder what he’s thinking.’ ” (“I just had to see and feel it for myself,” Lewis wrote in an essay for the New York Times, published after his death, “that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.”)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/documenting-john-lewiss-last-public-appearance/2020/07/30/0b1d2d04-cab3-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
John R. Lewis

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/opinion/john-lewis-civil-rights-america.html?smid=tw-share

[Nevilledog]

1. Beautiful.

[misanthrope]

2. That's heartbreaking

Look at his hands, at the atrophied and catabolized tissue for an indication of how sick he was. Yet he was determined to get out there and took the time to talk to others.

[SMC22307]

3. K&R

[crickets]

4. K&R for visibility.

[Duppers]

5. Respect.