From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American:
Just over a month ago, on June 7, Representative Lewis visited the BLACK LIVES MATTER public art painted on a street in Washington, D.C., with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser. Six days before, the president and Attorney General William Barr had set federal police in riot gear, wielding tear gas and rubber bullets, on the peaceful protesters nearby to clear them out of the way for a presidential photo-op. It must have been a chilling echo for Representative Lewis.
But he told Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart that he felt compelled to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza because he was “inspired” to see the peaceful protests in America and around the world against police violence. “It was so moving and so gratifying to see people from all over America and all over the world saying through their action, ‘I can do something. I can say something’,” Lewis told Capehart. “And they said something by marching and by speaking up and speaking out.”
Lewis said he had a warning for Trump. “Mr. President, the American people are tired and they cannot and will not take it anymore. They have a right to organize the unorganized. They have a right to protest in a peaceful, orderly, nonviolent fashion. You cannot stop the people with all of the forces that you may have at your command. You cannot stop people when they say ‘no.’”