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{"source_url": "https://www.cnn.com", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/opinions/john-lewis-pancreatic-cancer-civil-rights-history-joseph/index.html", "title": "John Lewis represents an entire generation America can't afford to lose", "top_image": "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191229182249-02-john-lewis-lead-image-super-tease.jpg", "meta_img": "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191229182249-02-john-lewis-lead-image-super-tease.jpg", "images": ["https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150202171542-john-lewis-082313-exlarge-169.jpg", "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160719151736-peniel-joseph-new-headshot-large-169.jpg", "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180307171314-john-lewis-reflects-edmund-pettus-bridge-orig-alee-00003922-large-169.jpg", "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/140623040133-orig-john-lewis-civil-rights-paintings-thumbnail-story-top.jpg", "data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhEAAJAJEAAAAAAP///////wAAACH5BAEAAAIALAAAAAAQAAkAAAIKlI+py+0Po5yUFQA7", "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191229182249-02-john-lewis-lead-image-super-tease.jpg"], "movies": [], "text": "Peniel Joseph is the Barbara Jordan chair in ethics and political values and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor of history. He is the author of several books, most recently \"Stokely: A Life.\" The views expressed here are his. View more opinion articles on CNN.\n\n(CNN) The news that John Lewis, the civil rights icon and congressman from Georgia, has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer represents a sobering reminder. This legendary man now faces a mighty challenge -- and the sad news of his illness reminds us of the fortitude so many brought to the civil rights struggle and the somber reality that we are slowly losing the generation that defeated Jim Crow segregation in America.\n\nPeniel Joseph\n\nEvery generation that passes into history takes with it vital institutional memory that indelibly shapes contemporary notions of citizenship, freedom and democracy. Lewis' generation has done this in momentous ways. Beyond the quest for voting rights and struggles to end Jim Crow in public schools and neighborhoods lay the undiscovered country of full citizenship for everyone from semi-literate sharecroppers in the Mississippi Delta to the unjustly incarcerated in big cities across America.\n\nThe life and legacy of John Lewis encompasses the complex relationship between race and citizenship in America. The outpouring of love, support and concern that greeted the news of the congressman's medical diagnosis should be refracted though the lens of our own tumultuous time: an era marked by racial divisions, a democracy in peril and the alarming frequency of violence such as mass shootings and police killings of unarmed black people.\n\nIn the age of Donald Trump, the possible loss of a statesman such as John Lewis matters more than ever. In that sense the nation now finds itself lamenting the potential loss of its best self, the side of the national character purposeful enough to believe that sacrifice inevitably led to democratic renewal and reinvigorated moral purpose.\n\nJUST WATCHED Rep. John Lewis on crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge (2018) Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Rep. John Lewis on crossing Edmund Pettus Bridge (2018) 01:11\n\nJohn Lewis, through non-violent sit-ins, protests and demonstrations, helped to shape a generation of Americans who sought to transform a political reality long based on racial segregation, poverty and violence. As a Freedom Rider in Anniston, Alabama, in May 1961, Lewis experienced a brutal attack by a white mob that nearly killed him. Four years later, as the chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis faced off against mounted Alabama state troopers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge, emerging as one of the heroes of \"Bloody Sunday\" and experiencing another beating that left him with permanent physical scars, wounds that helped to heal America's political soul.\n\nRead More", "keywords": [], "meta_keywords": ["opinions", "John Lewis represents an entire generation America can't afford to lose (opinion) - CNN"], "tags": [], "authors": ["Opinion Peniel Joseph"], "publish_date": "Mon Dec 30 00:00:00 2019", "summary": "", "article_html": "", "meta_description": "In lauding the epic achievements of Rep. John Lewis who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, historian Peniel Joseph notes in the outpouring of love and support for Lewis a sense of anxiety and fear about losing Lewis's generation, whose moral clarity and fierce resolve in advocating for civil rights are a store of institutional memory our country cannot do without.", "meta_lang": "", "meta_favicon": "/favicon.ie9.ico", "meta_data": {"viewport": "width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, minimum-scale=1.0", "section": "opinions", "referrer": "unsafe-url", "og": {"pubdate": "2019-12-31T00:06:02Z", "url": "https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/30/opinions/john-lewis-pancreatic-cancer-civil-rights-history-joseph/index.html", "title": "John Lewis represents an entire generation America can't afford to lose", "description": "In lauding the epic achievements of Rep. John Lewis who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, historian Peniel Joseph notes in the outpouring of love and support for Lewis a sense of anxiety and fear about losing Lewis's generation, whose moral clarity and fierce resolve in advocating for civil rights are a store of institutional memory our country cannot do without.", "site_name": "CNN", "type": "article", "image": {"identifier": "https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191229182249-02-john-lewis-lead-image-super-tease.jpg", "width": 1100, "height": 619}}, "pubdate": "2019-12-31T00:06:02Z", "lastmod": "2019-12-31T00:06:02Z", "author": "Opinion by Peniel Joseph", "twitter": {"title": "John Lewis represents an entire generation America can't afford to lose", "description": "In lauding the epic achievements of Rep. 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