Political
Lewis extended blacks' political influence. The National Humanities Center states, “Still others, using the Voting Rights Act of 1964, opened electoral politics to African American voters and candidates as never before. In the South, the impact was stunning, as newly enfranchised black voters partnered with liberal and moderate whites to elect more African Americans than the region had seen since Reconstruction. In the cities of the North and West, black communities gained representation as never before. Nationally, forty-three black candidates won election as mayor in 1973, a number that quintupled over the next fifteen years.” John Lewis's actions later led to Affirmative Action. PBS explains, "Later programs, such as affirmative action, were made possible by the Act. Title VII of the [Civil Rights] Act established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)." Though Lewis has served Congress since 1986, his legacy's culmination was in O'Bama's election, where his effect is most evident. “[1960s Civil Rights Reformers'] efforts to open and transform workplaces, schools, politics, and communities had, bit by bit [over time], opened a pathway for Barack Obama to reach the pinnacle of power, even as it was his own prodigious talent that carried him up that path to the Oval Office.” Topping the political hierarchy was unfathomable for his contemporary blacks, but Lewis facilitated the possibility. |
"When we were organizing voter-registration drives, going on the Freedom Rides, sitting in, coming here to Washington for the first time, getting arrested, going to jail, being beaten, I never thought—I never dreamed—of the possibility that an African American would one day be elected president of the United States." (Lewis on election of Obama) |