CNN "Newsroom" - Transcript Interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton

Interview

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Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton is a longtime friend and colleague of John Lewis. Congresswoman, good to see you.

REP. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON (D-WA): My pleasure.

WHITFIELD: What are your thoughts and feelings today?

NORTON: Well, my thoughts really go back to when John Lewis and I were both youngsters on the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and never dreamed that we would both become members of Congress of the United States. We never dreamed it because, frankly, that would have been impossible.

John's pioneering work, though, prepared him for what he had to achieve to become a member of Congress. Remember that when John led SNCC, as we called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, that was a deadly act. This was when segregation was a matter of law in the south of the United States, and when he himself was beaten more than 40 times. He was risking his life each and every one of those times.

He led by example. When the rest of us saw what John was doing, people like me, who were in the Mississippi section of the movement, and Mississippi was the last of the states to be opened, understood that this, too, can happen everywhere. It was his own leadership, leadership that did not occur until the youth movement was born in the early 60s. Remember, the Civil Rights movement began with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That's ordinary adults just refusing to get on a bus. It was not until the sit-ins that John Lewis became prominent, and that you had a youth section of the Civil Rights movement which he went on to lead.

WHITFIELD: And I was going to say, as a teenager he's involved in these sit-ins. And while you are a foot soldier in your own right, as you mentioned, in Mississippi, and he's your contemporary, in a way, though, did he inspire you? And if so, how did he inspire you, even though you were a contemporary?

NORTON: In a real sense, John did. Now, we were both in SNCC, and when I went into Mississippi, I was going in to parts of the south that even John had not gone into. Young and foolish, I could only think of John's example. And John's example inspired not only me, but it inspired Bob Moses, the legendary leader of SNCC, in Mississippi, inspired me to go to Mississippi where otherwise I would have been very reluctant to go, and where he later came and helped lead the movement. His example is what is most important. John was really the most important disciple of Martin Luther King Jr. And at that time, there was no youth movement. He is responsible for helping to create it.

WHITFIELD: And so then, fast forward, here you guys were kids, and then you too have been a lion as a delegate and now congresswoman on Capitol Hill, working alongside Congressman Lewis. What has that working relationship, that friendship, that lifelong commitment been like for you two?

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NORTON: Well, it mattered a great deal to both of us to begin our lives in the Civil Rights movement with no thought of going further, except proceeding as people usually do. And to end as colleagues once again, in the House of Representatives, this was a joyous reunion, and I frankly am very proud that two members of SNCC got to Congress in the first place.

WHITFIELD: All right, well, you, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton are timeless yourself. I've been talking to you since I was a cub reporter, and you're timeless and ageless. Thank you so much for your memories and sharing so much about what you know and love about Congressman Lewis. Appreciate it.

NORTON: Of course.

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