Beloved Community
By Representative John Lewis

The beauty of the earth is one of my greatest inspirations. I try as often as I can to get back to the fields and streams of rural Alabama where I grew up. It was in smelling the wildflowers, touching the ancient oaks, the poplars and pines, I learned wonder. As I was drinking the clear, fresh water from an Alabama spring, I learned purity. When I was fishing with a simple cane pole deep in the quiet of a warm, lazy afternoon, I learned the value of prayer and patience.

As I was feeling the dirt and the pine straw between my toes, I discovered that the wilderness is a part of you and it is a part of me. I discovered that we should never, ever break our connection to the earth, from its beauty, its joy and its peace.

We used to say in the Civil Rights Movement that the struggle in America is inseparable from the struggle in Africa or the Caribbean. That the struggle in Eastern Europe and South America is inseparable from the struggle in the United States. But I say to you that also the struggle to save America’s fields and streams, the struggle to save endangered species is inseparable from the struggle for human rights around the globe.

As Dr. King would say, “We must learn to live together as brothers and sisters or together we will perish as fools.” As Gandhi would say, we must learn to choose between nonviolence or nonexistence.

These ideas were the foundation of the Civil Rights Movement, and they also are the foundation of the environmental justice movement. I truly believe that as we move deeper into the 21st century, the connection between healthcare, the environment and the civil rights movement will become more and more clear.

We all need to breathe fresh air, drink clean water and eat safe food. These things are all necessary for us to live, and I believe that access to these vital components of human life is a sacred right that should not be violated.

Those of us who are friends of the environment have a lot of work to do today. People have not yet understood the practical relationship between job creation and environmental protection. Most people do not understand the relationship between preserving our land and the ideals of justice and peace.

But that should not stop us. I am here to say, don’t give up. Don’t give in. Don’t give out. Don’t get lost in a sea of despair. Stay in the struggle, continue to get out there and push and pull to move this society forward. There is a force of good, a power, what I like to call the Spirit of History, and it is on your side.

When I was growing up in rural Alabama, I saw those signs that said “white men,” “colored men,” “white women,” “colored women,” “white waiting,” and “colored waiting.” I tasted the bitter fruits of racism, and I didn’t like it.

I used to ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great grandparents, “Why segregation? Why racial discrimination?” They used to tell me, “That’s the way it is. Don’t get in trouble. Don’t get in the way.” But I was fortunate to become involved in the modern day Civil Rights Movement, and I got in trouble. I got in the way.

It was good trouble, it was necessary trouble. You must be maladjusted to the problems and conditions of today. You must find a way to dramatize your issue. And then you have to get in the way. You just have to get in the way and make your voices heard.

Through your leadership, you must help build an all-inclusive world community based on simple justice, an all-encompassing community that values the dignity of every individual, wild lands, waters and wildlife — what I like to call the Beloved Community.

The most pressing challenge in our society today is defined by the methods we use to defend the dignity of humankind. You cannot wait for someone else to create change. Through your own efforts, through your own action, through your own creativity and vision, you have to do it. You must make our society and our world a better place.

Forty years ago another generation of men and women, black and white, had the courage, had the capacity and had the ability to get in the way. They put aside the comfort of their own lives and they got involved in the circumstances of others. At 23, I traveled around the country encouraging people to come to Mississippi to get involved with the Freedom Summer of 1964.

Forty years ago, it was almost impossible for people of color living in the South to register to vote. In 1964, the state of Mississippi had a population of more than 450,000 blacks, but only 18,000 were registered to vote. In one county in Alabama — Lowndes County — 80 percent of the residents were African American, and there was not one single African American registered to vote.

We were ordinary citizens, just like you, but we began organizing in Mississippi with one simple mission: to register as many black voters as possible. It was a great task, but our passion for justice was even greater.

We knew our mission would not be without risk. In 1964, the state of Mississippi was a very dangerous place for those of us who believed that everyone should have the right to vote. And freedom did not come without a heavy cost. Less than a month after we arrived three civil rights workers, three young men — Andy Goodman and Mickey Schwerner — both white… and James Chaney, a black man — disappeared.

Later we found out that these three young men had been arrested, taken to jail. That same night they were released from jail by the sheriff and turned over to the Klan. They were beaten, shot and killed. I tell you this so you will know that the struggle for social justice has been a long, hard road, littered by the battered and broken bodies of countless men and women who paid the ultimate price for a precious right — the right to vote.

For those of us in the Movement, we learned early that our struggle was not for a month, a season, or a year, but the struggle of a lifetime. That is what it takes to build the “Beloved Community.”

As leaders of the environmental movement, you can move our society forward by standing up for what you deeply believe. You have a mandate from the Spirit of History to follow in the footsteps of brave and courageous men and women who fought to make a difference.

Now it is your turn to lead. It is your turn to build the Beloved Community. You must help to build a new, more green, more clean America and a better world in the 21st century.

You must use all your power to love and not to hate, to build and not to tear down, to heal and not to kill. And if you use that power, if you continue to pursue a standard of excellence in your daily lives — in your homes, in your communities and in your work — then a new and better world, a Beloved Community, is yours to build. w