Congressman John Lewis, who is a central and powerful figure in the Civil Rights movement, is dead after a 7-month battle with pancreatic cancer, aged 80.
Rep Lewis, who was diagnosed as stage 4 in December 2019, represented Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for 17 terms and was dead on Friday. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a statement, said, “Today, America mourns the loss of one of the greatest heroes of American history.” She went further to refer him as the “Conscience of the Congress.”
John Lewis, who had been in Congress since 1987, had already had an inspiring impact on American history long before that as he was marching should-to-should at times with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the fight for Civil Rights.
He was part of a protest in 1961 against segregated buses in the South, which became known as the Freedom Rides. Lewis also spoke at the landmark March on Washington in 1963, where Dr. Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, and marched for voting rights in Alabama in 1965.
Mr. Lewis didn’t impact without setbacks or adversities as he was one of the protesters brutalized by cops during the march from Selma to Montgomery, AL. As he led several hundred marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, John Lewis was clubbed in the head by a state trooper. His skull was fractured, leaving a scar he carried for the rest of his life.
In his second-to-last tweet back on July 7, he commemorated his release from prison after being arrested during a Freedom Ride in Jackson, Mississippi.
59 years ago today I was released from Parchman Farm Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson, MS for using a so-called "white" restroom during the Freedom Rides of 1961. pic.twitter.com/OUfgeaNDOm
— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) July 7, 2020
In the recent government, the Congressman from Georgia had become a subject of the nemesis of President Trump. Rep. Lewis failed to attend Trump’s inauguration, openly called him a “racist,” and they would even frequently trade barbs in the media.
However, during the previous government, President Obama awarded the Congressman the Medal of Freedom in 2011. During the ceremony, he said, “Generations from now when parents teach their children what is meant by courage, the story of John Lewis will come to mind — an American who knew that change could not wait for some other person or some other time; whose life is a lesson in the fierce urgency of now.”
Rep. John Lewis was dead at the age of 80. RIP to the Iconic Figure!
