I feel lucky and blessed that I’m serving in Congress. But there are forces today trying to take us back to another time and another dark period. We’ve come so far, we’ve made so much progress. But as a nation, as a people, we’re not quite there yet. We have miles to go. — Rep. John Lewis, (D) Georgia
As someone who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in Selma and Washington D.C., Congressman Lewis—who has represented Georgia’s 5th District since 1987—knows the necessity of participating in the franchise. He spent the 1970s going door to door registering future Black voters and viscerally understands—in our current summer of reckoning—the existential challenges facing our country leading up to the November elections.
JOHN LEWIS—GOOD TROUBLE, Dawn Porter’s documentary on the life and work of the civil rights activist, is a testimony to the power of persistence and presence—of being there. As the late Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings confirms in the film, “The reason [Lewis is] effective as a leader is because he’s lived it.”
Streaming now on multiple platforms. See links below for details.
Magnolia Pictures
Laemmle Virtual Cinema, Los Angeles.
Dawn Porter, John Lewis—Good Trouble (2020), from top: John Lewis; Lewis leads Selma, Alabama, marchers, March 7, 1965, courtesy and © Birmingham News; John Lewis—Good Trouble poster, courtesy and © Magnolia Pictures, 2020; President Barack Obama presents a 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Lewis during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington; Lewis (far right) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., (center) and the Reverend Ralph Abernathy (far left). Images courtesy and © Magnolia Pictures.