Some sixteen years ago, I was driving to my house in southeast Atlanta when I saw my longtime Congressman, John Lewis (D-GA 5th), standing on a sidewalk taking to a group of black men, some dressed for construction work.    Although it was not clear what was going on, the men appeared to be picketing outside the Cabbagetown Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills construction site, where an abandoned cotton mill was being renovated into urban lofts thanks to a large influx of Clinton-era federal “Empowerment Zone” money. The Mill is just a few blocks from the birth home of Martin Luther King and the offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).    I knew John Lewis because I wrote about and worked in politics. I had also worked in the building trades, and a few years earlier, I helped my coworkers in a mostly-black workforce decertify a fake company union that was stealing our money in the Atlanta convention industry. So I...(Read Full Article)