SEATTLE — The late Georgia Democratic congressman John Lewis lost his fight Friday night against pancreatic cancer.
Now the civil rights icon’s life is being remembered as one of service.
Lewis was here as recently as 2016 and 2017 to promote his comic book trilogy titled “March.”
And he is being remembered fondly by his fellow activists here in Seattle.
“He just kept consistently working for humanity, particularly Black humanity,” said Larry Gossett, the longest-serving King County council member. “But he loved everybody.”
That is how Gossett, who lost his seat last November, is remembering the iconic civil rights activist.
Gossett was a young man when he first met Lewis in the 1960s, both of them in a huge anti-war march in New York City.
“And I got to march, well, I figured out a way where I marched about two people from John and about three rows in back of Martin,” said Gossett.
He said Lewis was alone among the civil rights leaders who came to Seattle to celebrate the naming of King County for Martin Luther King Jr.
“But John, because he knew me and said, ‘This is something,’” said Gossett. “‘We don’t have nothing like this in Atlanta, Georgia, named in honor of Doctor King.' And he did come out here and spent three days.”
“He was a fighter to the end,” said longtime activist Eddie Rye, “for justice for Black people.”
Rye, who fought for years to get Empire Way renamed for King, said Lewis had a kind of humility he lacks.
“Like I said, the beatings and stuff he took, there’s no way,” said Rye.
Rye said he couldn’t have endured them.
“Absolutely not,” said Rye. “I mean, I saw some brutal things as a little boy growing up in Shreveport, Louisiana.”
But Lewis survived and lived long enough to see the torch of civil rights activism passed to a new generation, most poignant perhaps on this day last month.
“And people that were there and looked at his face,” said Gossett. “They said, ‘Aww, that was so wonderful for him.’”
Gossett said a fitting tribute to Lewis would be for Congress to pass his last major piece of legislation, a voting rights bill to end voter suppression.