Georgia Rep. John Lewis had just finished speaking to Arizona delegates at the Democratic National Convention when a special guest wanted to see him.
Jerry Emmett, the 102-year-old honorary chairwoman of Arizona’s delegation, wanted to meet the Atlanta civil rights icon. So Arizona delegate Janie Hydrick walked her, arm-in-arm, to meet Lewis.
Lewis had heard Emmett’s show-stopping announcement of Arizona’s delegate tally at Tuesday’s roll call vote, and he immediately embraced her.
“I was very moved by meeting her, knowing that at the age of 102 she had an opportunity to vote for a woman to be be next president of the United States,” Lewis told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “And she said when she announced the vote that she hopes she will live to see that woman, Hillary Clinton, elected.”
Emmett told the AJC that she never imagined she would get to meet Lewis.
“He has done so much to help do away with the tensions between Americans,” she said.
It was an emotional moment for everybody involved.
“She cried and I cried with her,” Lewis said. “It’s very moving to see people who have lived so many years and to see that their hopes and their dreams, their aspirations, are realized.”
Hydrick said “it was a moment that will always stay in my heart.”
“Jerry has been an Arizona icon for Democratic values for decades, and I have revered Congressman Lewis since his courageous fight for human and civil rights in the ’60s,” Hydrick said. “To see them together, physically embracing as their values and courage had been interlocked for so long renewed my commitment to the struggle.”
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