Let's get in some "good trouble!"
Honor John Lewis with a protest on July 17 from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
John Lewis believed in the power of a protest. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed discrimination, but was met with fierce resistance in the South. Lewis was convinced, however, that nonviolent mass protest would change the hearts of the American people, and that the American people could and would force a change to the law.
In 1965 and as part of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Lewis led a group of protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL, where they were attacked by state troopers and police. The television footage of peaceful protesters being subjected to such violence—60-year-old Amelia Boynton was beaten unconscious, Lewis suffered a skull fracture, and 17 marchers had to be hospitalized—shocked the nation’s conscience, and the tide began to turn. The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965, and had “an immediate impact. By the end of 1965, a quarter of a million new Black voters had been registered” and by the end of the next year, “only four out of 13 southern states had fewer than 50 percent of African Americans registered to vote."
“Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble. We will find a way to make a way out of no way.”
John Lewis credited Rosa Parks and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. for his notion of “good trouble” and both of them for the “philosophy and discipline of non-violence.” He resisted injustice with all his strength to the very end of his life when, on July 17, 2020, he succumbed to pancreatic cancer.
On Thursday, July 17 from 5:30 - 7:00 p.m., we will honor John Lewis’s legacy with some good trouble of our own, a protest over I-65 on the West Lee Street bridge. Take Exit 10 off of I-65 North, which is West Lee Street (Chickasaw) and meet us in the Circle K parking lot to your left (314 W Lee St, Chickasaw, AL 36611). We will walk the very short distance to the bridge and spread out on both north and south-bound sides.
Signs should be large (whole poster boards, at least) and use large simple messages opposing Trump, ICE and detentions/deportations, defunding Medicaid and SNAP, as well as honoring John Lewis and the struggle for civil and human rights, or anything else on your mind and heart. (Maybe the Epstein files..?)
About weather: we will go ahead with the protest if it is raining, but if there is lightning and thunder, we will wait it out in our cars in the Circle K parking lot, and call it off if conditions become dangerous.
Also, in the event that there are too many people to safely occupy the overpass together, we can send part of our group to the overpass south of West Lee St. (see photo below) and/or protest along West Lee Street itself.
Questions? Email us at indivisiblemobileal@gmail.com. See you there!