Activism

Opinion: John Lewis, C.T. Vivian Together Helped Start Voting Rights Movement, Died on Same Day in Atlanta Commentary

Published

6 years ago

July 23, 2020

The news of the passing of two veteran Civil Rights leaders and giants John Lewis and C.T.Vivian, on the same day, jolted the nation’s consciousness, especially around the need for Blacks and other minorities to continue to register, vote and fully participate in the census to assure our voices are heard. They were considered “prophetic activist pathfinders” in the biblical tradition of Jeremiah “running to and fro through the streets, looking for a man to execute justice.”

They together added their voices, “made trouble” and were persecuted along with Daisy Bates, Septima Clark, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar and Myrlie Evers, Andrew Young, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Ella Baker, Rev. Hosea Williams, Dorothy Height, Rev Joseph Lowery, Rosa Parks, Rev. James Lawson, Diane Nash, Rev. James Bevel and Rev. Jesse Jackson helped to birth the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s, and they both died on the same day to join the pantheon of pioneering prophetic voices.

The news of their passing jolted the nation’s consciousness, especially around the need for Blacks and other minorities to continue to register, vote, and fully participate in the census to assure our voices are heard.

They gave their lives to make sure we are counted so that we can benefit when the roll is called in the upcoming November election — and when the trillions of federal dollars are distributed in 2021.

John Lewis, a minister and an Atlanta congressman from Alabama, shed blood in Selma to earn his civil rights icon status. He continued his indefatigable dedication for voting rights, from his participation in SNCC and VEP (Voter Education Project) until the day he died at 80 in Atlanta. Lewis had collaborated with Vivian while studying theology in Nashville, and the two of them were among the original 1961 Freedom Riders seeking to expose racism and to integrate southern facilities.

C.T. Vivian, a minister and Southern Christian Leadership Conference organizer who pioneered the politics of constructive confrontation behavior in employing voter registration strategies, also shed blood in Selma one month before Lewis, when he confronted Sheriff Clark. Both he and Lewis attracted national media coverage for their courageous challenges. Their sacrifices woke up the nation to the fact that Black votes mattered.

Their struggles and deaths remind us of the courageous volunteerism of the students and activists, who were mostly white, and had worked side-by-side with the Black faith-based community in 1964 and were among those arrested and killed for the right of Blacks to vote. Vivian, 95, like Lewis, was an activator who stirred the pot of activism that motivated organizers like Rev. William Barber and Stacey Abrams. He too died in Atlanta just hours before Lewis.

Lewis and Vivian joined Rev. Joseph Lowery, who also died this year at 98 in Atlanta, the birthplace of Dr. King.

I had the opportunity to march and work with both ministers Lewis and Vivian since the 1965 Selma, Alabama Voting Rights March 1965 as a student, reporter, faith-based organizer and field director for the Southern Elections Fund and the Southern Regional Council, also headquartered in Atlanta.

While my wife Gay Plair Cobb and I lived in Atlanta from 1973 to 1977. Gay was director of the Department of Labor’s Women Bureau in Atlanta before serving in Washington, D.C. with former Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman. We rented the home of Jane Bond and Howard Moore and utilized our residence for many “organizing gatherings and meetings” with many people from the network of civil rights activists.

The Southern Elections Fund (SEF) was headed by the legendary Julian Bond who was also a Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) founder and member of the Georgia Legislature. Bond served as SEF Chair while Yancey Martin, who was a top advisor to Senator McGovern’s Presidential Campaign, was the Director. My job was to travel throughout the 11 southern states of the old confederacy to help organize voting and election strategies for Blacks. We helped raise funds and provided voter strategies for hundreds of Blacks, including Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson (see SEF Ebony March 1975, story www.postnewsgroup.com).

I hope faith-based leaders, the Congressional Black Caucus, civil Rights activists and the participants in the Black Lives Matter Movement will dedicate their efforts to monitor the electoral process and demand that the DigiTech companies not become complicit with efforts by those who seek to suppress the Black vote. When I delivered the commencement address at Holy Names University, I challenged the students and the University — since it is in the heart of Oakland with a history of civil rights activism — to commit themselves to the causes of voting, census and ethnic studies in our schools. The passing of Lewis, Vivian and Lowery should resurrect a spirit of activism in all of us.

The Post will continue to provide information on voter suppression tactics. We will monitor social media and any attempts to discourage the Black vote.

Paul Cobb, Post News Group Publisher

Posts by Paul Cobb, Post News Group Publisher

Related Topics:C.T. Vivian featured John Lewis

Up Next

Newsom Lays Out Pandemic Plan for Learning and Safe Schools

Don't Miss

California Split Over Vote That Could Raise Some Property Taxes

Paul Cobb, Post News Group Publisher

Click to comment

Activism

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses. The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Toks Omishakin, secretary of the California State Transportation Agency, was one of the speakers at the event. Photo by Shellee Fisher Photography and Design.

By Calvin Naito, Special to The Post

On June 4, a national nonprofit named the Equity in Infrastructure Project (EIP) – which aims to increase public construction contracting opportunities for small and historically underutilized businesses – held a day-long event in downtown San Francisco to rally supporters and build momentum to its cause.

It was attended by more than 100 individuals from public agencies, private firms, and other organizations committed to increasing contracting opportunities with governmental agencies, thereby creating more competition and lowering public costs.

The EIP event was held the Hyatt Regency San Francisco in conjunction with BuildIT, which aims to increase contracting opportunities for LGBT-owned businesses.

At the event, 16 entities signed the EIP pledge, vowing to take steps to increase public contracting opportunities in their spheres for small and historically underutilized businesses.

The pledge signees included Hub International, the Port of San Francisco, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, California High-Speed Rail Authority, the Port of Oakland, Robert Graham of Webcor Builders, Holder Construction, the Weitz Company, Sky Blue Builders, Hornblower, Swinerton, Luster National, Talson Solutions, Center for Community Wealth Building, and the Construction Contractors Alliance.

Following the workshop, BuildIT hosted a VIP evening reception honoring EIP, whose principals – Phil Washington, John Procari, and Rick Jacobs – accepted the award.

The event also set in motion the coalition’s efforts to implement recommendations from EIP’s “Procurement for Prosperity: A Playbook.”

The Playbook is a practical guide for public agency leaders and procurement and contracting practitioners to grow the capacity of small and first-time contractors, strengthen competition, and deliver better value for taxpayers.

Toks Omishakin, Secretary of the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA), a long-time EIP supporter, also told attendees, “This is about commitment. This has been a life’s work. This is a tailwind moment.”

The event’s presenting sponsor was Hub International, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the nation, which was joined by partners Travelers Insurance and the State Compensation Insurance Fund.

After the pledge-signing ceremony, attendees participated in a workshop in which they examined the policies, practices, and programs needed to meet EIP goals, learned from practitioners, and identified next steps toward utilizing the Playbook.

Ingrid Meriwether, formerly of Merriwether & Williams Insurance Services (MWIS) and current president of Hub International’s Aligned Risk Management, MWIS, described the hard-fought lessons she and her MWIS team have learned over the last three decades administering contractor development programs (CDPs) for the City and County of San Francisco, Alameda County, City of Los Angeles, LA Metro, and other municipalities.

The CDPs help small and local construction firms win public infrastructure contracts with these government agencies. The program provides bonding assistance, contract financing, technical support, training, and other services to underrepresented businesses funded by public agencies who seek greater contracting participation with these firms.

Merriwether said programs like these “break down systemic barriers, create greater fairness, and save taxpayers money by enabling more competition. The contractor development programs have, cumulatively, over two decades, helped contractors access over $1 billion in bonding, supporting over $380 million in awarded contracts, and maintaining a loss ratio 250 times lower than the industry average – while saving participating municipalities more than $27 million in contracting costs as a result of enabling more competition.”

Rick Jacobs, EIP co-founder and co-chair urged attendees make plans to meet again in the near future “to continue building on this work, share progress on organizational commitments, and discuss how we can collectively advance the goals of the EIP pledge.”

For more information on the EIP and to access a copy of the Playbook, go online to https://equityininfrastructure.org/

Calvin Naito is communications manager for Equity in Infrastructure Project.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Oakland Museum Presents Landmark Retrospective Celebrating Beloved Bay Area Artist Mildred Howard

“Poetics of Memory” coincides with a year of major recognition for Howard. In 2026, she received the California Arts Council’s 50th Anniversary Award, honoring artists whose work has shaped California’s cultural and civic life, as well as the Museum of the African Diaspora’s Artist Impact Award. In 2025, she was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in recognition of her transformative contributions to American cultural life.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Mildred Howard. Photo by Christine Cueto for the Oakland Museum of California, 2025.

Special to The Post

The Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opened “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory,” the first major museum survey of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard, on June 12.

The exhibition spans five decades of Howard’s influential work, bringing together immersive installations, found-object sculptures, archival materials, and new commissions that explore memory, identity, and power in American life.

Howard was born in San Francisco in 1945 and raised in the East Bay, where she went on to study Afro-Haitian dance, make and sell clothing, and experiment with collage and sculpture.

Her multimedia art practice emerged from these experiences, later becoming associated with West Coast conceptual art, San Francisco funk, and a vibrant community of artists like Oliver Jackson, Betye Saar, and Raymond Saunders. Since the 1970s, she has used found materials and family stories to explore memory—both individual and collective.

At OMCA, visitors enter “Poetics of Memory” through a series of intimate galleries featuring Howard’s early mixed-media pieces and sculptures, along with a large video projection of a number of her public artworks.

Together, they emphasize Howard’s interest in everyday objects as powerful carriers of individual and shared stories. Highlights include collages that remix images of the artist herself; found-object sculptures like The History of the United States with a few Parts Missing (2007) that address omissions in dominant narratives; and public works like “Locks and Keys for Harry Bridges” (2001) that transform urban space into a meditation on access and labor.

This culminates in a richly detailed “studio” environment, where works in progress, archival exhibition flyers, historic photographs of Howard and her community, postcards from fellow artists, and other materials offer insight into her creative process and daily life.

The exhibition then opens into a high-ceilinged, dramatically lit space that brings together Howard’s signature immersive installations. On one end, “Crossings” (1997/2026) – a field of hundreds of ceramic eggs leading to an ornate mirror – suggests cycles of birth, motherhood, and transition, while drawing on the emotional echoes of the Middle Passage. On the other end, “Blackbird in a Red Sky” (a.k.a. “Fall of the Blood House”) (2002) – a red glass shack bordered by a pond – also uses reflection and transparency to draw viewers into the work and prompt consideration of themes of identity and home.

Howard’s newest video installation, “Moving Stills” (2026), repurposes never-before-seen family footage she took as a teenager on a train trip to the American South. Projected onto cascading layers of translucent fabric that stretch across an entire gallery wall, the piece immerses viewers in a layered meditation on memory, migration, and time.

The “Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory” exhibit will be on display through Oct. 11 at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland, CA 94612. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours on Fridays to 9 p.m.

This story is sourced from the Oakland Museum of California press office.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Stop the Hate Symposium Brings Oakland Together Through Dialogue, Partnership, and Community Healing

More than a meeting and panel discussion, the annual symposium serves as a powerful example of what can happen when neighbors, community leaders, and organizations choose conversation over division, and unity over silence.

Published

7 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Speakers and guests at the annual ‘Stop the Hate Symposium posed with Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council ambassadors. Photo by Marcus Calloway.

By Dr. Maritony Jones, Special to The Post

With the purpose of creating safer, stronger, and more inclusive communities, and in partnership with the Oakland Private Industry Council and other community organizations, the Oakland Chinatown Improvement Council (OCIC) hosted the ‘Stop the Hate Symposium’ on June 13 at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center.

The free event featured keynote speakers, breakout sessions, cultural programming, creating a space where people from many backgrounds sat together with a shared purpose.

The turnout itself reflected the urgency and importance of the topic. The room was packed with community members eager not only to listen, but also to participate. Throughout the event, speakers shared data, personal experiences, research, and practical solutions designed to address hate, violence, social inequity, and community safety.

The keynote panel featured respected leaders and advocates, including Ray Bobbitt, founder of the African American Sports & Entertainment Group (AASEG); Ryan Takemiya from RAMA; Caheri Gutierrez from the Unity Council; honorary guest speaker Oakland City Councilmember at-Large Rowena Brown and City Councilmember Charlene Wang; representatives for Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and U.S. Rep. Lateefah Simon, with Gia Vang of NBC serving as moderator.

The symposium also offered multiple breakout sessions that addressed issues affecting communities across Oakland and Alameda County:

Session 1, 2, 3: Building Safer and More Inclusive Communities, led by Pastor Raymond Lankfort, CEO of Oakland Private Industry Council (OPIC), Jessica Kang, research manager for Stop AAPI Hate, Kara Guerra of The Unity Council, and Gabriela delaRiva of the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation
Session 4: Talk Story: Collective Healing and Relationship Repair, presented by Ryan Takemiya, executive director of RAMA
Session 5: Sexual Violence Prevention, presented by Tunisia Owens, interim deputy director of Realized Potential
Session 6: Violent Attacks on Teens, presented by MaryAnn Alvarado, program manager of Youth Alive

Every session contributed to an important truth: meaningful change begins within communities, through honest dialogue and a willingness to work together.

One of the strongest themes to emerge from the day was the need to create more conversations and stronger partnerships—not just during times of crisis, but consistently and intentionally. Relationships among organizations, neighborhoods, and community leaders often operate behind the scenes but are not always highlighted or celebrated.

Bobbitt spoke powerfully about this issue, noting that partnerships and relationships often go unrecognized despite being essential to community progress. He pointed to examples such as the partnership between OPIC and OCHIC, emphasizing that these collaborations deserve more visibility, investment, and expansion.

Perhaps his most memorable message resonated deeply throughout the room. Bobbitt explained that when a grandparent is attacked or harmed, the impact extends beyond race or ethnicity because today’s families and communities are increasingly multicultural and interconnected.

“We are not going to see our grandparents as just Latino, Asian, Caucasian, or African American,” he shared in essence. “We are going to see them simply as our grandparents.”

Those words reflected the heart of the symposium. Hate may target one group, but pain and loss are felt by everyone. Likewise, healing and progress are shared responsibilities.

For more information about the Stop The Hate Program visit the website: https://www.oaklandchinatownchamber.org/stop-the-hate (or) https://oaklandpic.or