This is one in a series of short stories I've been writing during my own coronavirus quarantine. You can find the complete collection of fiction written especially for this blog here. My books are available on the Amazon Kindle, for sale or for reading via Kindle Unlimited.
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The Catafalque rolled slowly down Pennsylvania Avenue, pulled by two black horses.
It was followed by the Great Man’s family, by the country’s new leader, and by hundreds of men and women who had known him in life.
The “Man from Montgomery” was almost anonymous in this last group.
John Lewis had started the great man on his way. A lifetime ago. Now the long-time director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and rainmaker for the “lynching memorial” going up southwest of downtown, wondered what might have been.
His mind went all the way back, back to the beginning of the end of his political career.
It was 1986. Wyche Fowler had decided to run for Senate. His House seat was open.
There were only two candidates, John Lewis, and the already-great man. Lewis tried to make his opponent’s marriage the issue. The Great Man had built a cross-racial coalition, the Buckhead crowd, the east side’s gentrifiers, and City Hall’s grifters were all behind him.
Lewis had the preachers of the south side and the west side. It wasn’t going to be enough.
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