John Lewis

John Robert Lewis was an American politician and civil rights activist who served in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966 and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. 

Fulfilling many key roles in the civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States, in 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident which became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers. A member of the Democratic Party, Lewis was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986 and served 17 terms. 

The district he represented included most of Atlanta. Due to his length of service, he became the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. Lewis was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House, serving from 1991 as a chief deputy whip and from 2003 as a senior chief deputy whip. He received many honorary degrees and awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

John Robert Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940, the third of ten children of Willie Mae (née Carter) and Eddie Lewis. His parents were sharecroppers in rural Pike County, Alabama, of which Troy was the county seat. As a boy, Lewis aspired to be a preacher, and at age five, he preached to his family's chickens on the farm. As a young child, Lewis had little interaction with white people, as his county was majority black by a large percentage, and his family worked as farmers. By the time he was six, Lewis had seen only two white people in his life.

Lewis recalls, "I grew up in rural Alabama, very poor, very few books in our home." He describes his early education at a little school within walking distance from his home. "A beautiful little building, it was a Rosenwald School. The community supported it; it was the only school we had. "I had a wonderful teacher in elementary school, and she told me, 'read my child, read!' And I tried to read everything. I loved books. I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, with some of my brothers and sisters and cousins, going down to the public library, trying to get a library card, and we were told the library was for whites only and not for coloreds." 

As he grew older, he began taking trips to Troy with his family, where he continued to have experiences of racism and segregation. Lewis had relatives who lived in northern cities, and he learned from them that schools, buses, and businesses were integrated into the North. When Lewis was 11, an uncle took him to Buffalo, New York, where he became acutely aware of the contrast with Troy's segregation.

In 1955, Lewis first heard Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio,[ and he closely followed King's Montgomery bus boycott later that year. At age 15, Lewis preached his first public sermon. At 17, Lewis met Rosa Parks, notable for her role in the bus boycott, and met King for the first time at the age of 18. In later years, Lewis also credited evangelist Billy Graham, a friend of King's, as someone who "helped change me." Lewis also stated that Graham inspired him "to a significant degree" to fulfill his aspirations of becoming a minister.

After writing to King about being denied admission to Troy University in Alabama, Lewis was invited to meet with him. King, who referred to Lewis as "the boy from Troy," discussed suing the university for discrimination, but he warned Lewis that doing so could endanger his family in Troy. After discussing it with his parents, Lewis decided instead to proceed with his education at a small, historically black college in Tennessee.

Lewis graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, and was ordained as a Baptist minister. He then earned a bachelor's degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University, also a historically black college. He was a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. As a student, Lewis became an activist in the civil rights movement. He organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville and took part in many other civil rights activities as part of the Nashville Student Movement. 

The Nashville sit-in movement was responsible for the desegregation of lunch counters in the city's downtown. Lewis was arrested and jailed many times during the nonviolent activities to desegregate the city's downtown businesses. He was also instrumental in organizing bus boycotts and other nonviolent protests to support voting rights and racial equality.

During this time, Lewis said it was important to engage in "good trouble, necessary trouble" in order to achieve change, and he held to this credo throughout his life. While a student, Lewis was invited to attend nonviolence workshops held at Clark Memorial United Methodist Church by the Rev. James Lawson and Rev. Kelly Miller Smith. Lewis and other students became dedicated to the discipline and philosophy of nonviolence, which he practiced for the rest of his life.