Good Trouble: We Have Come Too Far and Fought Too Hard. On Our Watch the Clock Will Not Be Turned Back

On Saturday, the date of Lewis' death, he was honored in Atlanta, across Georgia, and in places like Nashville, Tenn. where his 1960 sit-in at a lunch counter - set upon by water hoses, wet brooms and fumigation machines - became "emblematic of civil rights in the Jim Crow south." Around the country, candlelight Good Trouble vigils were held urging we keep fighting for "the very foundation of our republic." For almost 60 years, Lewis was an exemplar of integrity and equality, likewise calling on his compatriots to "help redeem the soul of America." For his trouble, writes DNC chair Jaime Harrison, he "was harassed, beaten and bloodied within an inch of his life. And yet, he was one of the sweetest, kindest people you would ever meet. There was not a shred of bitterness (for) what he endured. In its place, he seemed to carry the spirit and power of the entire Civil Rights Movement." "As a man who had himself made history, he had a keen sense for when history was in the making," with "the power to break (people out of their bubbles and remind (them) their decisions were about more than the current moment...It was about bending the course of history a bit more in the right direction." Above all, Harrison writes, Lewis "truly believed in our ability to make change." Today, we can only beseech Congress and the rest of us to "show an ounce of the courage he would have showed in this moment." Lewis made his final public appearance last June, a few weeks before he died, at D.C.'s Black Lives Matter Plaza; thin but resolute, he watched a new generation take up his hard work. He wrote a searing essay about it - "Though I am gone" - published after his death. "I just had to see and feel it for myself," he said, "that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on." May it be so, and may he rest in righteous peace and power.