Congressman and Civil Rights icon John Lewis is being remembered today as a man of peace and non-violence.
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Lewis, who was a close lieutenant of Martin Luther King, Jr. and was later elected to represent Georgia in the US House of Representatives, passed away late Friday evening after a months-long battle with pancreatic cancer.
John Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama. He was the son of a sharecropper and raised on a cotton farm. At the young age of 23, Lewis joined the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King and became a pioneer in fighting for equality and the right for blacks to vote.
Lewis became one of the original Freedom Riders in 1961, taking buses from the North to the Deep South to protest segregation at interstate bus terminals. The 5’5″ Lewis was badly beaten during a stop in South Carolina.
“I grew up sitting on those lunch counter stools,” Lewis said.
John Lewis spoke at the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. King delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech (Lewis was the last surviving speaker from that historic event). He later had his skull fractured by Alabama state troopers during a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, during what is now known as “Bloody Sunday.”
In 2011, President Barack Obama awarded John Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the nation.
In December of 2019, Rep. Lewis announced that he was undergoing treatment for stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
“I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now,” he said in a statement at the time.
Although very ill, Lewis’ activism continued with him issuing a statement against the January 5th drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, as well as the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the ensuing nationwide protests.
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Lewis returned to the bridge in Selma on March 1st to mark the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and urged marchers ahead of the Alabama primary to “keep the faith. Keep our eyes on the prize. We must go out and vote like we have never voted before.” “Help redeem the soul of America.”
He also traveled back to Washington to witness the BLACK LIVES MATTER mural painted on the street leading to The White House.
On the same day as Lewis’ passing, another giant of the Civil Rights Movement departed this world.
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Rev. Cordy Tindell Vivian (AKA C.T. Vivian) was an author, activist, and close lieutenant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and friend to John Lewis during the movement. He was 95.
Over the weekend, expressions of sympathy poured in for both Rep. Lewis and Rev. Vivian. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke glowingly about her relationship with Congressman Lewis.
“John Lewis was a titan of the Civil Rights Movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation — from the determination with which he met discrimination at lunch counters and on Freedom Rides, to the courage he showed as a young man facing down violence and death on Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the moral leadership he brought to the Congress for more than 30 years,” Speaker Pelosi said in a statement. She added that Lewis was “one of the greatest heroes of American history.”
Rep. John Lewis was 80.
“If not us, then who? If not now, then when?” – John Lewis
John Lewis was “one of the greatest heroes of American history.”
We stand on the shoulders of giants like THIS humble and genuinely good man. A man who Loved his people. Loved ALL people. Loved his country even when that Love asked that he shed a bit of his his blood.
His unwavering belief in that great American idea and the “dream” of a King- that ALL men are truly created Equality – prompted him to get into “good trouble”…”necessary trouble” in pursuit of seeing that idea and hat dream…become a reality. And he never ever gave in to despair.
May he Rest in Peace.