by
Rashad Robinson
In his autobiography Walking With the Wind, John Lewis describes the morning of the 1963 March on Washington. The most prominent civil rights leaders -- Dr. King, Bayard Rustin, Lewis and others -- were in meetings at the Capitol and realized that the march had started without them. They watched as tens of thousands of people poured into the streets, seemingly leaderless.
"It was truly awesome, the most incredible thing I'd ever seen in my life," Lewis wrote. "I remember thinking, There goes America. We were supposed to be the leaders of the march, but the march was all around us, already taking off, already gone."
That story has stayed with me for years, because it perfectly illustrates the power of a grassroots movement, that tipping point moment where the will of the people refuses to be contained. The energy Lewis witnessed was a groundswell that led directly to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act and the recently-gutted Voting Rights Act.
