After leaving the SNCC in 1966, he served as associate director of the Field Foundation, which supported civil rights and social change. ![]() ![]() Though his work for civil rights led to further attacks, injuries and more than 40 arrests, Lewis continued to adhere to the philosophy of nonviolence and the furthering of the movement. The destination of their march for voting rights was the state capital of Montgomery, but Alabama state troopers attacked them at the bridge in a violent confrontation that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” News coverage of the conflict made the nation aware of the injustice and brutality of the segregated South and served to move forward the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The next year, on March 7, Lewis and Hosea Williams, another significant leader of the movement, led over 600 peaceful protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. In this leadership role, Lewis organized voter registration efforts and community action programs during the Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. That same year, he became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1963, at age 23, he was a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington. In 1960, he participated in the first mass lunch counter sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee, and as a Freedom Rider was badly beaten by a white mob in Montgomery. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was compelled to become part of the movement. He was 80.Īs a boy, he heard radio broadcasts of the Rev. He passed away on July 17, 2020, after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Rest in peace, Congressman Lewis, and thank you.Ĭongressman John Lewis was born to sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama. He saw something and did something that changed the world for the better. ![]() Called one of the most courageous activists the Civil Rights Movement ever produced, he dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties and building what he called the “beloved community” in America. House of Representatives, John Lewis of Georgia was a freedom fighter for more than 60 years. A civil rights icon and member of the U.S.
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