There’s a new place to get into trouble in Atlanta — good trouble, that is. 

Not far from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, in the area known as Vine City, you can walk in the shadow of John Lewis, as he looks upon his beloved city. 

At least, you can walk in the shadow of the seven-foot statute that honors the civil rights icon. 

John Lewis, the man, cast quite a shadow, and it is no exaggeration to say he changed the world. 

Rodney Cook Sr. Park — named for a Georgia lawmaker who also championed civil rights — was built by the National Monuments Foundation, the Trust for Public Land and the City of Atlanta. 

In addition to honoring Lewis and the Civil Rights Movement, the park represents an investment in an emerging community, significant because more often than not, wealthy, exclusive communities receive far more than their far share of public and private investment while neighborhoods such as Vine City are ignored. 

Some leaders in metro Atlanta have called the new park with its water fountains, pond, statues and green spaces the most impressive park in the city. 

C.T. Vivian’s civil rights book collection is housed in an African American library there as well, but make no mistake, the centerpiece of this public park is the image of John Lewis, the Georgia congressman who died last year at 80 years of age but who will always be with us. 

Lewis grew up poor on a farm in Alabama and despite an unprecedented legacy as a freedom rider, leading the march for social justice and voting rights across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, speaking at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and rising to become one of the most influential U.S. congressmen of our lifetime, remained humble and committed to serving his fellow man.  

Lewis was spat upon, beaten, arrested and jailed but throughout his life championed what he called “good trouble,” nonviolent protests and social activism. 

What happened more than 50 years ago at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma defined the man and frames his eternal legacy more than any other one event in his life. 

A short time before that Bloody Sunday in Selma, Jimmie Lee Jackson, a 26-year-old church deacon, was shot and killed by a state trooper in the aftermath of a voting rights march in nearby Marion. 

When he saw his mother being beaten, he lunged at the trooper and was shot. He died days later in the hospital. The trooper pled guilty to a misdemeanor manslaughter charge and served less than six months in jail.

A few weeks later, on March 7, 1965, Lewis came to the bridge in Selma with a few hundred others to remember young Jackson and stand up for equal voting rights for Black Americans. They planned to peacefully march 54 miles to the state capitol in Montgomery. Instead, as they crossed the bridge, police assaulted them with clubs and whips and shot tear gas. On that Bloody Sunday, 17 marchers were hospitalized and dozens injured for daring to believe in equality, social justice and voting rights. 

It is more than ironic that state lawmakers in Lewis’ adopted city of Atlanta passed restrictive voting rights legislation that many say will make it more difficult for Black people to vote in Georgia, just months after his death. 

These same lawmakers should visit Cook Park, walk in the shadows of the John Lewis statue, look into the pools of water and reflect on what their legacy will be. 

Jim Zachary is the editor of The Valdosta Daily Times, CNHI’s director of newsroom training and development and president emeritus of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.