Congressman John Robert Lewis passed away last week at the age of 80 after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Born the son of sharecroppers, Lewis became a figurehead in the civil rights movement after the 1965 march on Selma, Alabama.
In the wake of that march, Lewis (among many others) survived brutal beatings at the hands of the police. He also suffered beatings from angry civilian mobs as one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, an interracial group of men determined to defy the law that prohibited people of different races from sitting next to one another on public transportation. He was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and later was elected to lead that organization. Later in his career Mr. Lewis took a position in the Carter administration, before winning a senate seat for Georgia’s 5th district, which he held for over three decades. Posthumously, it was just announced that a high school in Virginia that was heretofore named after Robert E. Lee, will be renamed in honor of Congressman Lewis.
Such a remarkable career prompted many memorable quotes, and an opinion piece in the Washington Post has paid tribute to Congressman Lewis using his own words. Rest in power, John Robert Lewis.