“You are the light. Nev­er let any­one — any per­son or any force —damp­en, dim or dimin­ish your light. Study the path of oth­ers to make your way eas­i­er and more abun­dant. Lean toward the whis­pers of your own heart, dis­cov­er the uni­ver­sal truth, and fol­low its dictates.”

– John Lewis

Guid­ed by his core val­ues of empa­thy and mutu­al respon­si­bil­i­ty, leg­endary civ­il rights leader and Unit­ed States Rep­re­sen­ta­tive John Lewis strived every day to be a light in the dark­ness for oth­ers to fol­low. Whether march­ing in the streets for civ­il rights or occu­py­ing the well of the House to demand gun respon­si­bil­i­ty, he nev­er hes­i­tat­ed to con­front injus­tice by mak­ing what he called good trou­ble.

John Lewis became a liv­ing leg­end and an inspi­ra­tion for peo­ple around the world because he nev­er stopped work­ing to build a bet­ter soci­ety and a more peace­ful world. Again and again, he put his life at risk to secure greater free­dom for all, nev­er allow­ing any adver­sary to damp­en, dim, or dimin­ish his light.

His death is all the hard­er for us to bear because these are dark times for our coun­try and world. John Lewis was tru­ly a light in that dark­ness. He nev­er stopped lead­ing by exam­ple and nev­er gave in to fear. Though an elo­quent speak­er, his actions spoke more loud­ly than any speech he ever deliv­ered. He showed mil­lions of peo­ple what courage is. He lived it. Prac­ticed it. Taught it.

“I say to peo­ple today, ‘You must be pre­pared if you believe in some­thing. If you believe in some­thing, you have to go for it. As indi­vid­u­als, we may not live to see the end.’ ”

– John Lewis

Eight years ago, as a del­e­gate to the 2012 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, I had the great hon­or of meet­ing John Lewis and hear­ing him speak in a small group set­ting. He was lead­ing a ses­sion of the DNC’s Vot­ing Rights Insti­tute in Char­lotte before one of the night­ly con­ven­tion gen­er­al ses­sions, impress­ing upon us the need to exer­cise and ardent­ly defend our hard-won right to vote.

I’d seen and heard John Lewis speak on tele­vi­sion many, many times before that day. But it was some­thing else entire­ly to be in the same room with him, with no fil­ter. It was an incred­i­bly uplift­ing expe­ri­ence that I trea­sure to this day.

In the hours since his office relayed the news of his pass­ing, oth­ers have remarked how their encoun­ters with John Lewis lift­ed them up, too.

He was a font of kind­ness and encour­age­ment, espe­cial­ly to young pro­gres­sive lead­ers strug­gling to com­bat sys­temic racism and oppression.

Amer­i­ca’s North Star. The Con­science of the Con­gress. Civ­il rights leg­end. Amer­i­can icon. These and sim­i­lar phras­es have been offered up in trib­ute to his life this week­end, and right­ful­ly so, for John Lewis was the best of us.

“Use the words of the move­ment to pace your­self. We used to say that ours is not the strug­gle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the strug­gle of one judi­cial appoint­ment or pres­i­den­tial term. Ours is the strug­gle of a life­time, or maybe even many life­times, and each one of us in every gen­er­a­tion must do our part.”

– John Lewis

John Lewis knew that when his time on this Earth came to an end, his work would be unfin­ished. That did not trou­ble him, for he knew that the caus­es to which he cared so pas­sion­ate­ly about would be car­ried for­ward by a new gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers. Though he is no longer with us, we can and should take com­fort in his words and his lega­cy of good trou­ble. As hard as it may be to go on, we must.

Rest in pow­er, John, and thank you for show­ing us how to lead a great life.