The preaching politician: ‘Good Trouble’ documentary follows John Lewis from fields of Alabama to halls of Congress

John Lewis, center right, with fellow protesters on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, in “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a Magnolia Pictures release. © Spider Martin. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

John Lewis, center right, with fellow protesters on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965, in “John Lewis: Good Trouble,” a Magnolia Pictures release. © Spider Martin. Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

(RNS) — Before he was a Democratic congressman and before he was a civil rights activist, Rep. John Lewis preached to the chickens on his family’s farm as a young boy.

It’s a story staffers of Lewis can repeat by heart because they’ve heard it so many times.

“They would bow their heads; they would shake their heads,” he recounts in footage from an appearance at a Houston church in the new documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble.”

“They never quite said ‘Amen,’ but they tended to listen to me much better than some of my colleagues on the other side listen to me today in the Congress.”

On the Road to Montgomery and Selma with Rev. James Lawson Jr.

In March 2020, the UCLA Labor Center organized a labor delegation to travel with Rev. James Lawson Jr. to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, the home of the civil rights movement. Montgomery was the site of the bus boycott in 1955 that catapulted Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to international prominence. Selma was the site of Bloody Sunday, where, in 1965, Congressman John Lewis and other civil rights leaders were brutally attacked by state and local law enforcement officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge; Lewis suffered a skull fracture and was almost killed.

This journey was transformational for many of the participants, including Ron Herrera, president of the 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. 

USA Today: John Lewis-led pilgrimage aims to remind Congress: 'Our vote is our voice'

WASHINGTON —  Every year for two decades, congressional lawmakers have joined the pilgrimage to Selma, Alabama, to walk where Rep. John Lewis and other civil rights activists walked to cross the bridge they crossed in their fight for the right to vote.

For some like Rep. Terri Sewell, who represents Selma and is the lead sponsor of a voting rights bill, it’s a reminder of “the powerful change that ordinary Americans can make.”

It’s also a chance, she said, for her colleagues to “walk in the footsteps of the foot soldiers."

Montgomery Advertiser: 'We have to know this history': Congressional leaders make annual pilgrimage to Alabama

On Friday, congressional officials visited the Memorial for Peace and Justice, honoring victims of racial terror lynchings,— only designated a federal hate crime in February, 65 years after the gruesome murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till — and on Saturday the Frank M. Johnson Jr. Courthouse, historic First Baptist Church and Freedom Rides Museum in Montgomery.

Alabama Political Reporter: Congress members visit Alabama for annual Civil Rights Pilgrimage

Over 50 members of the United States Congress visited Alabama for the annual Civil Rights Pilgrimage on Friday.

The Congress members visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which was bombed in 1963, killing four little girls. The members of Congress attended a play about the life, times and tragic deaths of the four little girls. Following the event at the church, the congressional delegation toured the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where they spoke to reporters.

Montgomery Advertiser: National congressional delegation visits Montgomery lynching memorial

When Bettie Mae Fikes let loose her first notes beneath the pendulous metal pillars at the Memorial for Peace and Justice, she couldn't help but think of their last thoughts.

"I wondered what was on their minds at the time they were lynched," Fikes said of the men and women memorialized in corten steel above her. "Sometimes I think of the last thought — the last thought, was it fear? Did it feel like they were coming home?"

Southern Poverty Law Center: Congressional, civil rights leaders gather at Civil Rights Memorial to honor movement’s martyrs

U.S. Rep. John Lewis led a gathering of congressional and civil rights leaders in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, today, honoring those who lost their lives in the struggle for civil rights.

 

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