CNN "Newsroom" - Interview with James Clyburn

Interview

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I want to bring in the House Majority Whip, Congressman James Clyburn. He's a friend of John Lewis.

[16:05:05]

And I appreciate you joining us. I know this must be a very emotional day for you, Congressman.

REP. JAMES CLYBURN (D-SC): Well, thank you.

GOLODRYGA: What was going through your mind as you saw your friend in that casket travel across the Edmund Pettus Bridge one last time?

CLYBURN: Well, thank you very much for having. This afternoon, as the services started at Brown Chapel, and I sat with my three daughters. And the four of us watched the service there. We watched the horse- drawn carriage being taken across the bridge, and we all talked about it. One of them, my oldest had been to Brown Chapel and marched across the bridge with me and John. And we just talked a little bit about John, the sacrifices he made, and whether or not we were going to see this time with Black Lives Matter, the kind of success which eluded us back in the '60s.

As John and I talked about quite a bit before we went home to Atlanta for the last time, and he expressed fear of the sloganeering that was developed, and like defund the police, that that slogan could do the same thing to this movement that "burn, baby, burn" did to us back in the '60s. And so John spoke out forcefully against that. And so did I. Because I really believe that the Black Lives Matter movement has really made a breakthrough.

And it behooves all of us to rally (PH) behind this movement, do what we can to make this year a dedication to John Lewis. We ought to vote this year like we've never voted before. And so all the people who want to honor John, I can think of no better way than to turn out and vote in big numbers. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to take the floor of the House and I'll be introducing a piece of legislation to name a new voting rights act, the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of 2020.

And that is going to be to ensure that we have fair and unfettered elections this year, and do that in honor of John Lewis. So I'm calling on the Senate to pass it. I'm sure the House will, and the president to sign it, and let your deeds speak as to what you really felt about John Lewis.

GOLODRYGA: What a powerful message that would have, his name attached to that voting rights legislation, something that he had been fighting for up until his last day.

Congressman, my husband and I last night watch the CNN documentary "JOHN LEWIS, GOOD TROUBLE." You contributed to the film as well. And you obviously have so many memories with John, but what stood out to me when I was watching that was when you called almost meeting him at the South Carolina bus stop at Rock Hill only to be talked out of it by your wife, who reminded you at the time that she was pregnant and you weren't a college student anymore.

But you said that you wouldn't have been able to handle nonviolence as well as Congressman Lewis did. Talk about the strength that that took on his heart.

CLYBURN: Well, John was a disciple of nonviolence. I keep a likeness of Mahatma Gandhi on the wall of my whip office and I do that, really, because John Lewis to me personified the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy. You know, Martin Luther King, Jr. adopted nonviolence as the way to go. John adopted it and many of us did.

But John was the only one in the group that internalized it. And that's why I can't do what John did. I don't know that I could absolve the indignities, the beatings, and still tell them move forward. I don't know that many people could do that. I certainly know enough about my personality that I don't think I can't do that.

GOLODRYGA: And at such a young age that he was able to withstand that. And what's interesting is that you just said that when you were talking to him about the Black Lives Matter movement and then what came out of it, and some of the defund the police, you said some of these things made him fearful. And that is a bit surprising because he had said after being beaten nearly to death at such a young age that the fear was beaten out of him.

[16:10:03]

So that really tells you something about where we are as a country right now, that at his final days, some of that fear started to come back in him.

CLYBURN: Well, the fear that John spoke of is a little bit like the biblical fear rather than what we might see in emotions. John wanted so much for the Voting Rights Act to be restored. He wanted so much to see all of those efforts that he fought for back in the '60s come to fruition. And he remembered, when he woke up and saw the "burn, baby, burn" was a headline. He remembered what that did to that movement.

It destroyed it. It dethroned him in 1966 as president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It is when John and I turn our attentions to voting rights. He became the director of the Voter Education Project down in Atlanta and I was living in Charleston, South Carolina, at the time. And I became the chair of the Charleston County Voter Education Project. And we went all over the south registering people to vote because we knew that that's what it would take to change things.

He spent about four, five years doing that before he ran for the Atlanta city council then for the U.S. Congress. So his fear was that these kinds of headlines could undercut the movement. So it wasn't fear for his own personal being. He just did not want to see this movement get undermined the way ours did back in the '60s. And I'm still hopeful that we can get this done. I'm hopeful that the Black Lives Matter movement will get beyond law enforcement, into housing, into education, into health care.

All of those things that it takes to make a person whole. What it takes to make a community stable. What it takes to make families what we intend for families to be, and that is a nurturing place for all, and to go out into the world. So that's what John was all about. And that's what he was fearful of, that once again we would get undercut. I'm hopeful that it won't happen.

GOLODRYGA: Well, Congressman, it must be something quite special to be watching that today with your family there with you, and carrying his legacy going forward. We will continue to tell his story of his fearlessness, his bravery, his love for this country, and his hope that we can come together as a united country. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

CLYBURN: Thank you very much for having me.

GOLODRYGA: Thank you, Congressman. And we will be right back.

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