Five years after his death at the age of 80, protesters across the country remembered the late Rep. John Lewis, a Freedom Rider whose march for equality was built around the concept of getting into “good trouble.”
To honor his life and work, which included 33 years in Washington D.C., activists in downtown Tampa took to Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park where they rallied against Donald Trump, decried a growing fascist state, pushed back against the White House’s deportation efforts, and yes, troll the president with signs about his desire to stop talking about his long relationship with Jeffery Epstein.
Others continued to talk about the Epstein files, however, alluding the growing bipartisan skepticism over a memo from Tampa woman and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, which said that there was no client list connected to the convicted sex trafficker who allegedly committed suicide in prison.
Jennifer Young, an organizer with Indivisible Action Tampa Bay told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay that folks need to show up for each other. She said Lewis reminded activists that it’s important to be in the streets getting loud and taking care of each other—and that if he was still around today he’d be staging sit-ins and protests while reminding people to take up space and be present.
“It’s really important that we stand with our community, because they’re coming for you, if they haven’t come for you,” Young added. “Whether it’s trans rights, Palestinian rights, LGBTQ folks, the Black community, we have to do what we can to take care of each other during these times.”
Amanda Moonitz, a retired Hillsborough County educator who taught U.S. government, told CL that she explained to her students that checks and balances were how the government is supposed to work. “We’ve lost that,” she added.
