I’ve been thinking a lot about the Rep. John Lewis dancing to Pharell’s “Happy” video I mentioned yesterday that CNN says has gone viral. I have found that every time I think about it—and I keep thinking about it— it makes me feel good.  Happy.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, tho. It keeps coming to mind and I find myself wanting to watch it again.  I watched it before going to the gym at 5 a.m., and, in fact, was a bit late because I did (something that *never* happens.  Nothing comes before the gym.).  I watched it at the gym.  I listened to Pharell’s song over and over on my iPhone while working out.  I showed the video to my personal trainer who had not seen it and we laughed together (it says a lot that it could make his serious face break into a smile on a Monday morning!). I knew how it made me feel, but I couldn’t quite account for why.  Of course, seeing the Congressman do his little jig–especially at age 74, was precious, but really shouldn’t have accounted for how I felt.

Then it hit me as I was ironing (yes, I still iron.  I wear mostly cotton African outfits, so I have no choice…).  I know why that video makes me feel good.  I mentioned the tip of it in my previous post, but finally realized that this was truly the meat of it for me.

Maybe I finally figured it out because of the screening of the Sadoff Productions video “Standing on My Sisters’ Shoulders: A Civil Rights Documentary,” that I made it a point to see at our local library yesterday.  It was about the sharecropping women who were responsible for challenging the system to gain the right to vote in Mississippi in the 1960s (it sounds so whack to even say that.  Can you imagine someone just out-and-out denying folks the right to vote in America and expecting that to be ok?  I say “out-and-out because we realize that disenfranchisement is still going on today, but it tends to be more subtle).  Absolutely amazingly courageous women who felt that they had nothing to lose and everything to gain in the desperate and totally dangerous fight to be able to do what is guaranteed to every U.S. citizen but was denied in them in the state of Mississippi until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

I finally realized that the John Lewis “Happy” video makes me feel good because of this video.  Rep. John Lewis has a long and deep history with civil rights.  He began getting into what he called in an incredibly inspiring talk he did at my university a few years ago, “necessary trouble,” in the early 1960s when he was a college student member of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), a student civil rights group.  He has never given up the civil rights fight; the fight for human dignity for everyone. He has even taken it up for freedom of marriage here.  If he could be (literally) beat down by the forces of segregation on Bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama while marching for voting rights (watch the video above), go on to become a long-standing member of Congress, and still manage to find the genuine happiness he seems to possess in the YouTube video, then certainly we can.  Knowing it all is what makes me smile when I see him as he is in the “Happy” dancing video.

I am firmly convinced that once the smoke finally clears (we’re a society, it takes a while…), the Civil Rights Movement will be regarded by the country as truly one of the best things that America has ever experienced.  For Congressman Lewis to go from an idealistic college kid fighting for dignity for black folks, to be a well respected long-term member of Congress known for championing human dignity for all, is nothing less than astonishing.  For the country to accomplish this without violence on the part of the challengers of the system is beyond incredible.

We are just now getting to a place where we as a society are beginning to truly realize the awesomeness of this.  There are so many truly courageous and inspiring stories yet to be told.  The video yesterday about the women in Mississippi was one of them. I deal with this area all the time for my classes and had never heard that story and it’s 50 years later.

Every other society in the world who has challenged oppressive forces has looked to our own Civil Rights Movement for inspiration.  I have spoken with people in far flung places like New Zealand (the Maori), Australia (the Aboriginals), Egypt and sub-Saharan African countries like Ghana, Senegal, The Gambia and Kenya, and all have mentioned the inspiration of our civil rights struggle in our conversation (I’m not quite sure exactly how I’m just visiting their country but the folks always manage to get around to this topic with me.  Maybe they feel my vibe…).

As a society, we are just now getting to the place where we are ready to hear and appreciate what the Civil Rights Movement truly was.  I know it’s been decades, but again, we are a society.  Things take a while.  The Civil Rights Movement changed life as America had always known it.  That’s *huge*.  It makes sense that it would take some time to process it.

As we think about it, we should do so, as with slavery, with pride.  We ABHOR that the situation happened, but what I choose to concentrate on is the incredible fortitude, strength, courage, perseverance, intelligence and determination that it took for us to overcome it.  We are still standing.  And we thrive. That is truly, truly awesome and worthy of praise and should be a source of immeasurable inspiration.  It should be a source of pride not only for black folks who were a part of it (As a 12-year-old I attended the March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have A Dream” speech) or whose ancestors, like mine, were a part of it (the Census took on a whole new meaning for me when I read my great-grandfather’s entry in 1910 and saw that his 84-year-old mother, who lived with him, had birthed 13 children, but 11 had been sold away), but for everyone.  Get rid of the guilt, white folks.  It wasn’t your fault.  Guilt is useless except to keep us stuck.  No one wants that.

Yes, slavery and Jim Crow (the system of U.S. racial segregation from after slavery to the Civil Rights Act of 1964)  happened.  We can’t change that.  But, where do we choose to go from here?  I choose to use what happened as a source of never-ending strength and inspiration that reminds me that if those who came before me could get through what they did, then I need to shut the hell up and carry on with whatever it is I am whining about that isn’t nearly so arduous. When I stand up to speak before a group, I understand that those folks who came before me and persevered paved the way for me and are with me.  How can I not shine?

I am as impatient as anyone and want it all to be understood and appreciated now, but that’s simply not how things work.  It’s no different than your friend slapping the crap out of you, then expecting that you’ll be ok and ready to be their friend in five minutes.  No, it’s going to take a while.  A long while.  You need time to process it, think about it, figure out what it means for moving forward, etc.  Maybe one day the two of you will be able to turn around and look back at it and laugh, but it won’t be five minutes later.  And just think, we weren’t even white America’s friend. They had always rejected that from us.  So, processing takes a while–on both sides.

With the Civil Rights Movement, like with the slapping friends,  when America does finally turn around and look back at it, it will marvel at how we managed to get through it and get to a new place on the other side.  And it will feel so much stronger and richer for it.

If John Lewis can do it with what he went through (that we owe him big time for), and feel happy, then surely we can.

Works for me.