Lewis, John Robert (1940-2020), an American politician and civil rights leader, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1987 until his death in 2020. A Democrat from Georgia , Lewis became nationally known in the early 1960’s for his efforts organizing student protests against racial discrimination in the South .
Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on Feb. 21, 1940. His parents were farmers. Lewis attended segregated schools in Pike County, Alabama, and later graduated from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. As a university student in 1961, Lewis volunteered as a “Freedom Rider,” confronting segregation at bus terminals throughout the South.
In 1960, Lewis became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which organized student protests, such as sit-ins at lunch counters. He was chairman of the SNCC from 1963 to 1966. In 1963, Lewis was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington , where Martin Luther King, Jr. , delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech . In 1965, Lewis was a leader in the voting rights protest march from Selma , Alabama. He and other marchers were attacked by state troopers in an event that became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis also suffered beatings by angry mobs and was arrested by police dozens of times.
During the late 1960’s and 1970’s, Lewis worked for a number of organizations to promote the rights and political involvement of African Americans . In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis to help lead ACTION , a federal agency that directed volunteer programs. In 1981, Lewis won election to the City Council of Atlanta, Georgia. He served from 1982 to 1986, when he was elected to his first term in Congress . In the House of Representatives, Lewis served on the Ways and Means Committee and as chairperson of its Subcommittee on Oversight.
Lewis is coauthor of a memoir, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998). He co-wrote, with an aide and an illustrator, the graphic novels March: Book One (2013), March: Book Two (2015), and March: Book Three (2016). The books form a trilogy tracing Lewis’s participation in the civil rights movement . ForBook Three, with co-author Andrew Aydin, Lewis won the 2017 Coretta Scott King Award , which honors Black authors, and the 2017 Michael L. Printz Award , with Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell, for excellence in literature written for young adults. Run: Book One (2021), a graphic novel by Lewis and Aydin with illustrators Powell and L. Fury, was published after Lewis’s death. The “Run” series, a sequel to the “March” trilogy, tracks Lewis’s transition from an activist to a participant in the political process.
In 2011, Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor awarded by a U.S. president. Lewis died on July 17, 2020. He became the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.
