Talk and Action

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore, but this week has been one for the record books. We had the sublime- President Obama's farewell address, Vice President Biden receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom; the ridiculous- the #goldenshowers story regarding Trump; and the despicable- the efforts by the Republicans in both houses of Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But the week ended on a truly bizarre note, with the President-Elect saying that Rep. John Lewis, (D-GA), was " all talk, no action." Putting aside the irony of a man like Trump, whose entire business and political career has been built on his propensity for hyperbole and braggadocio, saying that someone else is "all talk," the fact that he had the gall to say it about someone like Mr. Lewis makes me furious.

I grew up in the South, and lived in my home state of Georgia until 1993. In the 1970s and 1980s, Georgia was still recovering from the dramatic social and political changes of the 1960s, and was still deeply divided along racial lines. While I attended desegregated schools, that was the extent of interaction for most people with those from another ethnic group. We didn't live in the same neighborhoods, we didn't attend the same churches. Often, we didn't even shop at the same grocery stores. There were White parts of town, and Black parts of town, and very few people crossed these invisible, but very real, lines.

I remember one little town I lived in as a child (my father was a Methodist minister, and we moved every 2-3 years from one small South Georgia town to another) had a pool that was owned by a group of families in the community. The pool was located right next to the elementary school campus. All of the families who owned the pool as a cooperative were white, of course. As the son of the pastor of the local Methodist church, I was often invited to go swimming there. As a kid, I never thought of the fact that everyone who had access to the pool, and everyone I ever saw there, was white. I never thought about how this pool, which was the size of a municipal pool and had all of the infrastructure of a small-town municipal pool, came to be owned by these families. Only as an adult did the pieces fall into place. This had very likely been the city pool for this small town, and had been closed by the municipality when it was required to integrate the pool and allow black citizens to use it as well. It had then been sold to this group of white families, and become private property. As private property, the pool didn't have to abide by any civil rights ordinances. The law was followed, and the pool could remain free of any black swimmers.

I was thinking about this pool this week, when Mr. Trump used the bully pulpit (emphasis on the bully) of his Twitter account to make his claim about John Lewis being "all talk, no action." Mr. Lewis has spent his life fighting against oppression. He has risked life and limb on numerous occasions in this cause. He has been arrested, jailed, beaten, and gotten right back out there to continue to fight for justice. He is a man of eloquent words, but more importantly, he is a man of meaningful action. A small-town pool, the use of which was denied to citizens and then closed to keep them out, may not seem like much. But it is exactly the kind of injustice that Mr. Lewis has acted against all his life.

Mr. Trump may not like what Mr. Lewis has to say, and certainly it is within his rights to voice his disagreement with Mr. Lewis's statement that Mr. Trump is not a "legitimate President." But to say that Mr. Lewis is "all talk, and no action" is patently false. It is likely that Mr. Trump is not aware of Mr. Lewis's history as a civil rights activist. Ignorance, however, is not an excuse for falsehood. Sadly, ignorance and falsehood comprise much of Mr. Trump's worldview. That will not likely change after next Friday. That is why it is important for all of us to follow John Lewis's example and match words with actions.