Chap­ter 23: In Oppo­si­tion starts with an ear­ly yet impact­ful moment in John Lewis’s polit­i­cal career when he met Pres­i­dent George W. Bush in Feb­ru­ary 2001. This meet­ing marked a sig­nif­i­cant point in the hopes for bipar­ti­san­ship as Bush, the new­ly elect­ed pres­i­dent, aimed to bridge the divide between polit­i­cal par­ties in an era that was already defined by par­ti­san con­flict. How­ev­er, this brief sense of uni­ty was shat­tered only a few months lat­er by the dev­as­tat­ing events of the Sep­tem­ber 11 attacks. As the hor­ri­fy­ing news of the ter­ror­ist attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter and the Pen­ta­gon spread, Lewis, deeply affect­ed by the tragedy, insist­ed on step­ping out­side despite the advice to stay inside. He felt a strong desire to engage with those around him, hop­ing to offer some com­fort and solace to oth­ers who were reel­ing from the nation­al cat­a­stro­phe.

On that fate­ful day, Lewis demon­strat­ed his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to the Amer­i­can peo­ple as he con­nect­ed with col­leagues, friends, and cit­i­zens. Through sim­ple acts like shar­ing prayers with Sen­a­tor Pat Leahy, he show­cased the impor­tance of uni­ty in the face of tragedy. His gen­uine appeal for sol­i­dar­i­ty across faiths and polit­i­cal lines stood as a reminder that, dur­ing times of cri­sis, it is essen­tial to come togeth­er rather than allow divi­sions to deep­en. Lat­er that day, when called upon to speak at a vig­il, Lewis again emerged as a fig­ure of moral lead­er­ship, pro­vid­ing a sense of hope in a time of despair. His speech empha­sized the impor­tance of find­ing light in the dark­ness, which res­onat­ed deeply with those attend­ing the vig­il, and his words would con­tin­ue to echo in the minds of many.

The chap­ter moves into the after­math of 9/11 and the leg­isla­tive respons­es to the tragedy. While many law­mak­ers and cit­i­zens ral­lied behind new secu­ri­ty mea­sures to pro­tect the nation, Lewis remained cau­tious about the broad­er impli­ca­tions of such poli­cies. Specif­i­cal­ly, he voiced his con­cerns about the Patri­ot Act, high­light­ing its poten­tial to infringe upon civ­il lib­er­ties in the name of secu­ri­ty. His stance demon­strat­ed the del­i­cate bal­ance between safe­guard­ing free­dom and ensur­ing nation­al secu­ri­ty, as Lewis under­stood first­hand the cost of sac­ri­fic­ing rights for the sake of safe­ty. He ulti­mate­ly sup­port­ed mil­i­tary action against the Tal­iban, though with a clear acknowl­edg­ment of the com­plex­i­ties and con­se­quences of using force, shaped by his own expe­ri­ences with con­flict and non­vi­o­lence dur­ing the civ­il rights move­ment.

As a life­long advo­cate for civ­il rights, Lewis did not only focus on imme­di­ate respons­es to nation­al crises but also worked to shape long-term poli­cies and insti­tu­tions that would ben­e­fit African Amer­i­cans. One of his crown­ing achieve­ments in Con­gress was his long-stand­ing effort to cre­ate a Nation­al African Amer­i­can Muse­um, a project that would hon­or the his­to­ry and con­tri­bu­tions of African Amer­i­cans. While the effort faced sig­nif­i­cant hur­dles, includ­ing resis­tance from pow­er­ful insti­tu­tions like the Smith­son­ian, Lewis’s per­sis­tence in advo­cat­ing for the muse­um nev­er wavered. He gained cru­cial bipar­ti­san sup­port, includ­ing from con­ser­v­a­tive fig­ures like Sen­a­tor Sam Brown­back, and fought tire­less­ly to ensure that the bill passed both the House and Sen­ate, a vic­to­ry that rep­re­sent­ed the cul­mi­na­tion of years of work.

Despite the chal­lenges, includ­ing polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion and per­son­al set­backs, Lewis remained focused on the broad­er pur­pose of his work. When the bill for the museum’s cre­ation was final­ly signed into law, Lewis cel­e­brat­ed the achieve­ment but knew that this was just one step in his ongo­ing fight for civ­il rights and equal­i­ty. The open­ing of the muse­um would become a sym­bol of his ded­i­ca­tion to pre­serv­ing the his­to­ry of the civ­il rights move­ment and ensur­ing that future gen­er­a­tions would under­stand the strug­gles and tri­umphs of African Amer­i­cans. Lewis’s com­mit­ment to social jus­tice remained unwa­ver­ing, and even as he cel­e­brat­ed this vic­to­ry, he rec­og­nized that the fight for equal­i­ty and jus­tice would con­tin­ue in the years to come. This chap­ter encap­su­lates the mul­ti­fac­eted nature of his polit­i­cal career, his unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to jus­tice, and the com­plex process of nav­i­gat­ing the polit­i­cal land­scape in pur­suit of long-term change.