John Lewis, in full John Robert Lewis, (born February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama, U.S.—died July 17, 2020, Atlanta, Georgia), American civil rights leader and politician best known for his chairmanship of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and for leading the march that was halted by police violence on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, a landmark event in the history of the civil rights movement that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
Lewis was the son of Alabama sharecroppers. He attended segregated schools and was encouraged by his parents not to challenge the inequities of the Jim Crow South. As a teenager, however, he was inspired by the courageous defiance of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr., to whose attention Lewis came when he indicated his desire to desegregate Troy State College (now Troy University). Dissuaded from doing so by his parents, Lewis instead was educated in Nashville at the American Baptist Theological Institute and Fisk University (B.A. in religion and philosophy, 1967).
There Lewis undertook the study of nonviolent protest and became involved in sit-ins at lunch counters and other segregated public places. In 1961, while participating in the Freedom Rides that challenged the segregation of Southern interstate bus terminals, Lewis was beaten and arrested—experiences he would repeat often. In 1963 he was elected to replace Chuck McDew as the chairman of SNCC, a position he held until 1966, when he was succeeded by Stokely Carmichael, as the organization took a more-militant direction. Also in 1963 Lewis played a key role in the historic March on Washington. Indeed, by that point, Lewis, though still in his early 20s, had already become such a prominent figure that he was considered one of the civil rights movement’s “Big Six” leaders, along with King, James Farmer, A. Phillip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young. In 1964 Lewis headed the SNCC’s efforts to register African American voters and organize communities in Mississippi during the Freedom Summer project.
civil rights movement
American civil rights leaders meeting with government officials at the White House on the day of the March on Washington, August 28, 1963. From left to right, Secretary of Labor Willard Wirtz, Mathew Ahmann, Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Joachim Prinz, Eugene Carson Blake, A. Philip Randolph, Pres. John F. Kennedy, Vice Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson, Walter Reuther, Whitney M. Young, Jr., and Floyd McKissick.
Cecil Stoughton—Official White House Photo/John F. Kennedy Presidential Library
On March 7, 1965, Lewis played a pivotal role in one the most important events in the history of the American civil rights movement when he and King lieutenant Hosea Williams led some 600 peaceful demonstrators on a march in support of voting rights that departed from Selma, with the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, as its destination. At the beginning of the march, while still in Selma, as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River, the protestors were confronted by a large force of sheriff’s deputies, state troopers, and deputized “possemen” (some on horseback) who had been authorized by Alabama’s segregationist governor George Wallace to “take whatever means necessary” to prevent the march. Given two minutes to disperse, the marchers were almost immediately set upon. They were quickly doused with tear gas, overrun by horses, and attacked with bullwhips and billy clubs. As a result of the brutal assault, more than 50 marchers were hospitalized, including Lewis, whose skull was fractured but who spoke to television reporters before going to the hospital, and called on Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to take action in Alabama. Millions of American television viewers witnessed the event, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” and within 48 hours demonstrations in support of the marchers had taken place in some 80 American cities. The resulting heightened awareness would contribute mightily to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act , which was signed into law by Johnson on August 6, 1965.
After leaving the SNCC, Lewis, who had made his home in Atlanta, remained active in the civil rights movement, most notably as the director of the Voter Education Project. In 1977 a fellow Georgian, Pres. Jimmy Carter, put Lewis in charge of ACTION, the umbrella federal volunteer agency that included the Peace Corps and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). Lewis entered elective office as an Atlanta city councilman in 1981 and in 1986 began representing a district that included Atlanta in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Barack Obama and John Lewis
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (far right) witnessing the official signing into law of the Civil Rights History Project Act of 2009 by Pres. Barack Obama in the White House Oval Office on May 12, 2009. Other representatives in attendance included (from left) Mike Quigley, Carolyn McCarthy, Sanford Bishop, Lacy Clay, and James E. Clyburn.
Pete Souza—Official White House Photo
In addition to numerous other honours he received, Lewis was awarded the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize in 1975, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2001, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Spingarn Medal in 2002. In 2011 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His memoirs are Walking with the Wind (1998; cowritten with Michael D’Orso) and the March trilogy (2013, 2015, and 2016; all cowritten with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell), a graphic novel series for young adults that was based on Lewis’s experiences in the civil rights movement. The final installment in the series received numerous honours, including the National Book Award (2016), and Lewis and Aydin shared a Coretta Scott King Book Award (2017). The documentary John Lewis: Good Trouble (2020) chronicles his life and career.
In July 2020, after a battle with pancreatic cancer, Lewis died. Called the “conscience of Congress,” he became the first African American lawmaker to lie in state in the rotunda of the U.S. capitol. At his funeral at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (King’s home parish), Lewis was eulogized by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, pioneer of nonviolent resistance James Lawson, and three former U.S. presidents: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama. Obama, for whom Lewis was an inspiration and a hero, called Lewis a man of “unbreakable perseverance” and said that he embodied “that most American of ideas— that idea that any of us ordinary people, without rank or wealth or title or fame, can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation and come together and challenge the status quo and decide that it is in our power to remake this country that we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals.”
At Lewis’s request, on the day of his funeral, The New York Times published a valedictory essay in which Lewis lauded the Black Lives Matter movement and provided marching orders for future activists, saying in part:
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
Citation Information
Article Title: John Lewis
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 03 August 2020
Access Date: January 13, 2021
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