John Lewis: Good Trouble
Is it fair to say that John Lewis is one of the most popular politicians in the modern era? I will certainly admit to being excited about the prospect of covering the release of this documentary on him when it was slated to be the Opening Night film for this year’s Atlanta Film Festival before COVID-19 pushed it back to September. Now, it is available for everyone to watch, although I went to one of its Pop-Up Drive-In shows in Atlanta. Not the ideal way to watch the movie about the life, and legacy, of the Civil Rights icon, and longtime Georgia congressman, but its story remained an affecting and inspiring call to action from a titan.
John Lewis was the youngest of three brothers from Troy, Alabama before he found himself within the orbit to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the early stages of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s. He eventually became one of the leaders of their non-violent protests, whether it was the freedom rides on bus lines, diner sit-ins, building up to the famous marches on Washington and in Selma to Birmingham, leading to the passage of both the Civil Rights Bill of 1965 and Voting Rights Act. Eventually, he left the movement as it shifted towards a more radical approach, and ran for Congress, winning his seat against friend Julian Bond, and remaining a fixture in Congress to this day, where he continues to fight for the rights of the impoverished while also trying to maintain the progress he helped set in motion in those days.
Dawn Porter’s documentary follows Lewis through the 2018 midterm elections, and shows him campaigning for Beto O’Rourke in Texas, as well as others, and Stacey Abrams in Georgia’s gubernatorial race, as well as watching the results on TV, and seeing the Democrats win back the house. We also see the impact of the 2013 Supreme Court decision which eliminated the pre-clearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act on the 2016 and 2018 elections, making it easier for state legislatures and Secretaries of State like Georgia’s Brian Kemp- who defeated Abrams in 2018- to disenfranchise, and make it harder, for voters to take part in the right Lewis helped try to enshrine for all Americans. By showing us to evolution of Lewis’s original fight for that right, as well as his attempts to maintain it, we are shown a life of purpose and direction, and a man who realizes that being the right kind of trouble can shake the core of a complacent society, and bring about change that benefits all who not only lived at the time, but whom will gain access to opportunity in the future. No trouble is better than that kind.
