The good ones die in threes: John Lewis, Rev. C.T. Vivian, Emma Sanders

The old folks say the great ones die in threes. Congressman John Lewis, Rev. C.T. Vivian and Emma Sanders. You better listen when grown-ups start speaking. 

The three Civil Rights era icons are reminders of an age of resistance. The image of a bloodied Lewis fighting for his survival at the Edmund Pettus Bridge stirred the rage of Americans. After stopping more than 600 marchers to pray, Alabama State Troopers launched tear gas and beat demonstrators with night sticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but his determination for justice didn’t cease. 

Vivian began protesting in 1947. It happened at Barton’s Cafeteria in Peoria, Illinois, proving the need for change extends beyond the Jim Crow ways of the deep South. In 1955, he, along with other ministers, founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference. He organized sit-ins and marches in Nashville where he was enrolled at the American Baptist Theological Seminary. By 1965, Vivian became director of national affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 

Sanders was among the group who challenged an all-white delegation from Mississippi at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. She was a founding member of Mississippi’s Freedom Democratic Party, the group that disrupted the convention during televised hearings, forcing the party to seat the Freedom Democrats. 

The three are tied together like the Holy Trinity. Each organized voter registration in Southern states. After suing to place the names of Blacks on the ballot in Mississippi, Sanders ran for Congress as an independent in 1966. She lost to John Bell Williams, a segregationist, but she kept fighting. All three kept fighting. 

“We ran strong, and that was a revelation,” Sanders is quoted saying in Bob Moser’s book “Blue Dixie: Awakening the South’s Democratic Party. “The year after, in 1967, we were able to elect Blacks to local elections.” 

Lewis and Vivian were students together at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville. Both were mentored by the Rev. James M. Lawson, who, along with Diane Nash, formed the Freedom Riders.  Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders, endured beatings by mobs, was arrested and imprisoned 40 days in the Mississippi State Penitentiary for his involvement as a Freedom Rider. 

“We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal,” Lewis is quoted saying in a September 24, 2012 article in the Smithsonian Magazine. “We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back.” 

Vivian was part of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s inner circle of advisors alongside Rev. Fred. Shuttlesworth, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Julian Bond and Bayard Rustin. Vivian led sit-ins at lunch counters, boycotts of businesses and marches in Selma, Birmingham, Jackson, Mississippi and other segregated cities.  

“People do not choose rebellion, it is forced upon them,” Vivian said. “Revolution is always an act of self-defense.”  

The great ones die in threes. I wonder what it all means. 

The deaths of Lewis, Vivian and Sanders feels like the funeral of an era. There’s was a time in which people were willing to die for equality. There’s was a type of activism unknown among today’s protestors. Some consider their brand of resistance a sign of weakness.  

Maybe their deaths rekindle memories of their strength. The will to take it – all of it – the dogs, the burning crosses, buses put on fire, the police, the guns, enraged crowds of white people, words like Nigger to remind you of white people unwilling to budge – can become a fading memory. They took all of it to protect voting rights. They endured the rejection. They refused to be defined by brutal resistance.  

You could see the wound from that day on the bridge on Lewis’s bald head. It was a reminder of his willingness to die for equality. 

“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic,” Lewis said. “Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.” 

Lewis, Vivian and Sanders – the great ones die in threes. 

I pray their deaths isn’t the end of an unyielding thirst for freedom. 

I’m looking for some good trouble.