On July 17, tens of thousands of individuals across the United States will participate in the “Good Trouble Lives On” day of action, commemorating the legacy of John Lewis, a revered civil rights leader and longtime congressman from Georgia. Note that this year’s celebration coincides with the fifth anniversary of Lewis’s death. It seeks to move us to act together, in the spirit of his powerful lessons on “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
John Lewis was one of the important leaders of the civil rights movement. In 1965, he was one of several hundred marchers. This march is perhaps best remembered when police brutally attacked Lewis and other marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. This appalling incident brought national outrage and ignited a passionate debate on civil rights violations. The next round of protests hopes to perpetuate Oscar’s spirit by continuing the fight for justice and equality.
The “Good Trouble Lives On” event is expected to see participants marching and rallying at over 1,500 locations across all 50 states. These will be followed by large rallies in cities including Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Annapolis and Oakland. Activists are uniting to protest the Trump administration’s civil rights rollback. They’re not just shining a light on these issues, they’re taking a stand for the right to protest and protecting voting rights.
This year protesters will address systemic social injustices that plague marginalized communities. There, they will draw attention to the targeting of Black and brown Americans, immigrants, and Transgender Americans. They will help you mobilize to passionately defend deep cuts to critical social programs. This means damaging cuts to programs including Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
Daryl Jones, an organizer of the event, said it was crucial to make a move after injustice has occurred. He reinforced the idea that John Lewis had made famous the conviction to get in good trouble, that we should speak up when we see something wrong. As Lewis would have it, our moral responsibility is to speak out and to do something.