Obama hails John Lewis as founding father of ‘fuller, better’ US in eulogy

Barack Obama inspired a standing ovation with his soaring eulogy at the funeral on Thursday of civil rights icon John Lewis, hailing the late congressman as afounding father of “a fuller, better America” yet to be realized, while forcefully calling Americans to fight the Trump administration’s effort to undermine a cause Lewis was willing to die for: the right to vote.

From the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr once preached, Obama traced the arch of Lewis’s life – a child born into the Jim Crow south, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963, a leader of the civil rights marches in Selma, and a US congressman from Georgia – tying his legacy to the present-day civil rights protests ignited by the death of George Floyd, a black man under the knee of a white police officer. He then drew a line from the racist forces that opposed civil rights in the 1960s the policies and ideologies embraced by Donald Trump.

“Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes, police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans,” Obama said, never mentioning his successor by name. “George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas and batons against peaceful demonstrators. We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting.”

In perhaps his most explicitly political speech since leaving office, Obama assailed Trump’s false attacks on voting by mail, which Democratic officials have pushed to expand in light of the coronavirus pandemic. He called the filibuster, a Senate rule requiring a supermajority of the chamber to pass legislation, which Republicans used to block his agenda, “another Jim Crow relic”.

Singling out members of Congress who issued statements calling Lewis a “hero” but oppose legislation that would restore the protections afforded under the Voting Rights Act Lewis struggled for in the 1960s, a law then granted under Lyndon Johnson but since weakened by a supreme court ruling in 2013, Obama said: “You want to honor John? Let’s honor him by revitalizing the law that he was willing to die for.”

“Preach,” a voice rang out from the pews, where mourners sat apart in observation of safety protocols during the coronavirus pandemic. All those attending the service wore masks.