In March of 2015, I moved back to Chicago from New York. That was right about the time a new musical production about an (until then) obscure founding father was also making a move, from its initial run off-Broadway at the Public Theater to the Richard Rogers Theater on the Great White Way. For those in the know, the buzz was already high on this one—buzz that was soon to break out to not only theatergoers in general but far, far beyond that, too. The show, of course, was Hamilton, the blockbuster new musical from Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights) that reimagines first Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s life…

As the country engages in an urgent and necessary conversation on racism and inequity, it’s tempting to think of much of the history of this particular issue as just that, the sort of thing that is behind us, only being revisited as a means to understand how best to move forward. A documentary like John Lewis: Good Trouble reminds us that, in fact, not only is the cause of civil rights and racial equity very much a present-day fight but the landmark events that are well-known milestones in the struggle didn’t actually happen all that long ago. Chronicling the life and work of Representative John Lewis, now 80 years old…