John Robert Lewis was an American statesman and civil rights leader. He served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. Lewis was one of the \”Big Six\” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. In 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A member of the Democratic Party, Lewis was first elected to Congress in 1986 and served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representative.
About John Lewis in brief
John Robert Lewis was an American statesman and civil rights leader. He served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. As a boy, Lewis aspired to be a preacher, and at age five, he was preaching to his family’s chickens on the farm. Lewis was one of the \”Big Six\” leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. In 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. A member of the Democratic Party, Lewis was first elected to Congress in 1986 and served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representative. He received many honorary degrees and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was also instrumental in organizing bus boycotts and other nonviolent protests to support voting rights and racial equality. Lewis said it was important to engage in ‘good trouble, necessary trouble’ in order to change the phrase and philosophy of nonviolence, and he held by this philosophy throughout his life. He also credited evangelist Billy Graham, a friend of Martin Luther King’s, as someone who ‘helped change me’ Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940, the third of ten children of Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis. He earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University, also a historically black college, where he was a member of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity. The group of 13 original Freedom Riders originated by the Rev.
James Lawson, James Lawson and Rev. Kelly Miller Smith. The Freedom Riders were a group of seven blacks and six whites who planned to ride interstate buses on the route from Washington D.C. to New Orleans to challenge seating policies of Southern states along the route that imposed segregated seating on the interstate. In 1961, Lewis became one of three original members of the Freedom Riders, and the group became known as the ‘Freedom Riders’ Lewis was married to the late Viola Lee Lewis, who died in 2008. He is survived by his wife, Coretta, and their three children, including a son and daughter-in-law, and a daughter- in-law. He has a son, John Lewis Jr., who served as a United States Congressman from Georgia from 1987 to 2010. Lewis is also survived by a daughter, Bernice Lewis, a former First Lady of Georgia, and two step-daughters, Angela Lewis and Angela Lewis, both of whom served as first lady of Georgia from 1991 to 2008. Lewis also has two sons, Michael Lewis and Michael Lewis, Jr., and a step-son, David Lewis, also of Georgia. Lewis has been awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his contributions to the civil rights movement and the fight for voting rights for African-Americans. He will be buried in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 14, 2020. He died on June 13, 2014, at the age of 92. He had served in Congress since 1986 and was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation.
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