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Erika Alexander shares John Lewis’ emotional reaction to inspiring new doc ‘Good Trouble’

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Magnolia FilmsErika Alexander proudly put on her producer hat for John Lewis: Good Trouble, the moving new documentary on civil rights activist John Lewis.  

The doc offers an intimate portrait on the legendary congressman and civil rights hero, who marched alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders during the fight for equal rights. Alexander tells ABC Audio that the film’s director, Dawn Porter, visited Lewis while he was undergoing cancer treatment in D.C., and received a glowing review from him.

“She tells us that he cried,” Alexander reveals. “He looked at it like he was just looking at something that he wasn’t even a part of.”

“Like, he was watching it like, ‘Who’s that boy from Troy?'” she explains, referring to Lewis’ hometown of Troy, Alabama. “And [Dawn] said she loved being there and she wouldn’t have traded it for the world.”

Alexander says that Lewis, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer in December 2019, “is doing well and holding up pretty well in treatment.”

“He’s has his rough days,” she says. “But that was a good day for him.”

While the doc highlights the push for equality during the ’60s, Alexander says it’s still very relevant for today’s times.

“Well, right now, we’re living in unprecedented times,” she says. “It’s not unprecedented for Black people to be oppressed and or abused or and tortured and terrorized. What’s unprecedented is that we’re doing it in the middle of a pandemic.”

“We’re also doing it at a time when you[‘d] think after…fighting the good fight — what he calls ‘good trouble’ in civil rights, that we’d be in a better position. But we’re not,” she adds.

John Lewis: Good Fight is now available On Demand.

By Candice Williams
Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.


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