“John Lewis: Good Trouble” airs now online as the Georgia congressman passes away at age 80 yesterday
The Avalon Theater Online had (on July 3, 2020) already started offering Dawn Porter’s documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble”, a biography of the 17-term Democratic and African-American congressman John Lewis from Georgia, when we learned early Saturday that Lewis had passed away at age 80 from pancreatic cancer. I actually learned it first when I got up this morning from a tweet from Jack Andraka. Civil Rights leader C.T. Vivian also passed away today at age 95 of natural causes. The film is followed with a 15 minute QA of Lewis by Oprah Winfrey. At the end he says he wished he had learned to draw!
Lewis’s favorite epigram was “It’s time for all good people to get in trouble.” Also, “it’s not enough to say something, you must do something.”
This idea certainly fits into today’s idea of anti-racism, moreover demanding that people join in demonstrations or protests and take risks of arrest (or become injured by violence, as at the Pettus bridge), and support others who do. Journalists take practical risks when they film, but by definition journalists don’t take sides.
The film shows many clips out of sequence, with many highlights from the 1960s civil rights movement in Alabama, with Birmingham and then the Pettus Bridge in Selma.
Much of his career encompassed voting rights, overcoming the practical difficulties black people would have with poll taxes or identification, and long lines with insufficient poll workers. This can become a very critical problem form the 2020 presidential election in November. States are increasing vote by mail, but some (mainly conservatives) claim this is an opening to fraud and possibly challenging an election. Election judges could have a tough and dangerous (from the viewpoint of Covid) with some risk of sacrifice this November to protect democracy, as things are shaping up.
One time Lewis said, “I don’t understand how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam, but not to Selma, AL to protect the rights of people who want to vote!”
Lewis also made a lot of the requirement that political donations be made public. That sounds like a way to expose corruption and over lobbying of issues. But in the age of being online, willingness to be public about what you support says something about what you will really fight for if you have to.
Lewis skipped out on Trump’s inauguration in 2017 and did not consider Trump a “legitimate” president.
The film mentions Lewis’s support for the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” in 2010.
Lewis at Civil Rights March in Atlanta, 2017 (wiki).
Name: “John Lewis: Good Trouble”
Director, writer: Dawn Porter
Released: 2020/7/3
Format: 1.85:1
When and how viewed: Avalon online 2020/7/18 $12
Length: 95, + interview with Oprah Winfrey
Rating: NA
Companies: Magnolia Pictures, CNN Films
Link: link
Stars: *****
(Published; Saturday, July 18, 2020 at 12: 30 PM EDT)