Good trouble

This month marks five years since we lost Congressman John Lewis. Words alone cannot fully convey the magnitude of his impact on our country and on the lives of every single person he met. I was fortunate enough to call him a colleague, and even more so honored to call him a friend.

Throughout his life and career, John Lewis was a champion for civil rights and a dedicated advocate for ensuring that the right of all people to have a voice in their country was protected. You see, everything he did was in service of a higher ideal; that America might fulfill the promise of liberty and justice for all laid out in our founding documents.

These days, his legacy weighs heavily on my mind.

It's painful to see just how far we've strayed from his vision. We have a President who is completely and totally opposed to the values and ideas that John Lewis fought for his entire career. At his core, President Trump does not believe that every American is an equal participant in our democracy. He's even gone as far as trying to eliminate birthright citizenship – part of an effort to silence the voices of people who disagree with him.

Let's get one thing absolutely clear: the President doesn't get to decide who is and isn't American. Every single American citizen has the right, not a privilege, but an inalienable right to have a say in how their country is run. This is John Lewis's legacy, and I'm proud to carry on this fight every single day through my work in Congress, and here at home in Massachusetts.

We have a responsibility to carry on this mission. If not for ourselves and our own freedoms, then for the countless people who cannot. Let's make "Good Trouble", as John called it, in the name of liberty and justice for all.

In solidarity,

Jim McGovern