‘Good Trouble’

 

“I come here tonight to thank members of this great institution for finding a way to get in the way, finding a way to get in trouble, good trouble, necessary trouble. . . . We need the press to be a headlight and not a taillight.”  

—John Lewis (1940-2020), Civil Rights pioneer and 11-term Georgia congressman, “A century of Pulitzer winners call on journalists to shake up status quo,” Poynter Institute, April 1, 2016.

Image: Congressman Lewis is arrested at a protest in 2009, 44 years after leading Civil Rights marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. A lifetime of ‘necessary trouble.’ Tim Sloan/Getty

• Editorial Comment: Shining the way.

 

• Related: NYT obit; CNN, “John Lewis’ life in pictures,” July 18, 2020. 

 

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