Voting rights gutted. Civil rights division dismantled. Social safety net slashed. Jan. 6 rioters pardoned. Parents separated from children at the border.
What would John Lewis think about the political upheaval roiling the country if he were still alive?
That was the question on many people’s minds as they gathered in Atlanta and across the country for “Good Trouble Lives On” marches.
Organizers of the movement reportedly planned more than 1,600 protests across the country to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the congressman’s death beginning June 17.
Events were expected to include rallies, candlelight vigils, food drives, civic engagement training, and voter registration drives.
“We are navigating one of the most terrifying moments in our nation’s history,” said Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen’s co-president, during an online news conference Tuesday. “We are all grappling with a rise of authoritarianism and lawlessness within our administration … as the rights, freedoms, and expectations of our very democracy are being challenged.”
Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, is a member of a coalition of groups behind the “Good Trouble” protests.
The flagship march kicked off in Chicago last night. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, hundreds gathered downtown carrying homemade signs celebrating Lewis and denouncing President Donald Trump.
‘Good Trouble’ organizers called for an end to the Trump administration’s crackdown on civil rights and the slashing of social programs, like Medicaid, SNAP and Social Security.
Read More: Atlanta ‘No Kings’ Protest Draws Thousands Amid Lawmakers Assassination
In Atlanta last night, about 1,000 protestors reportedly marched from the John Lewis mural on Auburn Avenue and ended at Ebenezer Baptist Church. Over 20 protests are scheduled throughout Georgia.
“Today we go to send a message from the birthplace of civil rights to … the one that wants to destroy the Department of Education, the one that wants to deport millions upon millions of people seeking a better life, the one who won’t release the [Jeffrey] Epstein files, the one who had the nerve to call the 5th District horrible and falling apart,” said Georgia NAACP President Gerald Griggs. “We still have a message for that man. In Georgia, no one is above the law. You still have a court date in the 5th District.”
In Washington, hundreds of people reportedly gathered a few blocks from the White House.
U.S. Rep. Al Green, the Texas Democrat who was censured for disrupting Trump’s State of the Union address back in March, told protestors, “We cannot tolerate injustice and hypocrisy.”
Lewis first was elected to Congress in 1986 and served Georgia’s 5th District for 17 terms in the House of Representatives.
“Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and redeem the soul of America,” Lewis said while commemorating the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 2020.
Lewis was born in Alabama in 1940. He was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer in 2019 and died in 2020 at the age of 80.
President Barack Obama wrote at the time of the congressman’s passing: “He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”
