At the end of 2015, I received a season’s greeting card from John Lewis.
I didn’t know him personally. I suppose I was on some list of (very small money) donors. Regardless, I received that card.
It was oblong and consisted of two photographs. The first — and the reason for the shape of the card — was of that memorable anniversary march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, centered by President Barack Obama, in a white shirt. His left hand is holding the hand of Amelia Boynton Robinson, civil rights activist, 100 years old, in her wheelchair. On the other side, he held the hand of John Lewis.
Open the card and there is another photo, equally moving and memorable. President Obama and John Lewis, hugging.
Beneath that, it reads, “Season’s Greetings With Faith, Hope and Love.” John Lewis’s signature, in golden brown ink, is beneath.
One person, one vote for every of-age citizen has been emotionally and intellectually at the heart of my political awareness.
The card stood all these years on my window sill. A couple of weeks ago, when my local framing place re-opened, I had it framed.
I hung it on my wall the day before John Lewis died.