Lewis and Sanders-On Almost Going Viral

Thanks to everyone who read & passed along my Feb. 12 post about John Lewis, Bernie Sanders, and the 1960s civil rights movement.

To my great amazement, the post went, if not quite viral, then at least contagious: as of Monday afternoon, it has garnered almost 12,000 hits; the highest total for any earlier post is a bit over 2300. And it may have had an impact.

At least , Rep. John Lewis, says the media, has now “clarified” his comments about never having seen or met Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 1960s civil rights movement days.

“In the interest of unity,” a Feb. 13 statement from Lewis said, “I want to clarify the statement I made at Thursday’s news conference.”

“I was responding to a reporter’s question who asked me to assess Sen. Sanders’ civil rights record. I said that when I was leading and was at the center of pivotal actions within the Civil Rights Movement, I did not meet Sen. Bernie Sanders at any time. The fact that I did not meet him in the movement does not mean I doubted that Sen. Sanders participated in the Civil Rights Movement, neither was I attempting to disparage his activism. Thousands sacrificed in the 1960s whose names we will never know, and I have always given honor to their contribution.” (Full statement here.)

My blog post had gone up the day before, and by early on the 13th it had more than 6000 hits, and had been reposted more times than I can track.

So maybe the post helped touch a nerve?

In any case, I’ll repeat what I said then, which is that regardless of the stresses of the current campaign, John Lewis is still a civil rights hero and a legend.

Note: Here’s a clip from the Chicago Tribune, about Bernie’s arrest in August 1962, for protesting school segregation in Chicago. He was fined $25. (More contemporary documentation of his activities is here.)