Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon who fought for racial justice first with Martin Luther King Jr. and later in the halls of Congress, has died at 80
WASHINGTON – Rep. John R. Lewis, the civil rights icon whose fight for racial justice began in the Jim Crow south and ended in the halls of Congress, died Friday night.The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis served in Congress for more than three decades, pushing the causes he championed as an original
He became a community activist and member of the Atlanta City Council before winning a seat in Congress in 1986. He would go on to become a best-selling author and was awarded the nation's highest civilian award, the, by President Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president. Lewis was elected to his 17th term in November 2018.
Apart from the Freedom Riders, a group of black and white civil rights activists who rode interstate buses to fight segregation across the South, Lewis was one of the founding members of the, which advocated for civil rights with demonstrations at lunch counters and voter-registration drives. "Martin Luther King Jr. was so pleased. He was gratified, He was deeply moved and touched to see this new militancy on the part of the students," the congressman continued."He knew then that his message of non-violence and passive resistance would live, and it would be moving around the South, embedded in the very being of these young people."
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