John Lewis (civil rights leader)

John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in Troy, Pike County, Alabama, one of ten children of Eddie Lewis and Willie Mae Carter Lewis. His parents were sharecroppers who later bought a 110-acre farm where they grew cotton and peanuts; his father also drove a school bus and his mother worked as a laundress. The farm, about 50 miles from Montgomery, had no electricity or plumbing.⁠[1][2][3]

In 1957 he became the first member of his family to finish high school, and he went on to American Baptist Theological Seminary (now American Baptist College) in Nashville, TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry. About a year later he began attending nonviolence workshops led by the Reverend James Lawson and sponsored by the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, and in November and December 1959 he took part in the conference’s first, unsuccessful attempts to desegregate Nashville lunch counters.⁠[2]

On February 13, 1960, he joined Nashville’s first full-scale sit-in. Seven days later, after whites verbally harassed students at the Walgreen’s lunch counter, he drafted rules of conduct that other Southern protest movements later adopted. Like other sit-in participants, he refused to post bail when arrested. In April 1960 he became a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Raleigh, North CarolinaNorth CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state in the South Atlantic region of the United States; its capital is Raleigh and its largest city is Charlotte. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on November 21, 1789, becoming the 12th state, and its population in the 2020 census was 10,439,388.Open the full entry.⁠[2]

In 1961 he graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary with a B.A. and joined the Freedom Rides, traveling with integrated groups to protest segregated bus terminals; he was attacked by segregationists at the bus station in Montgomery, Alabama.⁠[1][2][3]

In 1963 he became chairman of SNCC and one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement. He helped organize the March on Washington on August 28, 1963, and was one of its principal speakers alongside Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr.Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was an American Baptist minister and social activist who led the U.S. civil rights movement from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. He headed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.Open the full entry, delivering one of the day’s most pointed speeches. In 1964 he helped coordinate SNCC’s “Freedom Summer” in MississippiMississippiMississippi is a state of the United States on the Gulf of Mexico; Jackson is both its capital and its largest city. It was admitted to the Union on December 10, 1817, as the 20th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 2,961,279.Open the full entry.⁠[3][1][2]

He also earned a B.A. in religion and philosophy from Fisk University; Black Americans in Congress gives the year as 1967, while the Tennessee Encyclopedia gives 1963.⁠[1][2]

On March 7, 1965, he led the voting rights march from Selma toward Montgomery; on the Edmund Pettus Bridge Alabama state troopers beat him and about 600 other activists, and he suffered a fractured skull, in what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” Black Americans in Congress describes the event as the catalyst for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.⁠[1][3][2]

The Tennessee Encyclopedia records that during his civil rights work in the 1960s he was beaten unconscious four times and arrested at least 40 times.⁠[2]

In 1966 he left SNCC amid disagreements over Black Power ideology and the role of whites, and in protest at the organization’s growing militancy; Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture) succeeded him as chairman. He also served as associate director of the Field Foundation.⁠[3][2][1]

From 1970 to 1977 he directed the Voter Education Project of the Southern Regional Council. In 1975 he received the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize from the King Center.⁠[2][3]

In 1977, when Andrew Young resigned from the House to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Lewis ran in the special primary for the seat, finishing second of 12 candidates with 29 percent; Wyche Fowler won the runoff with 62 percent. That year President Jimmy CarterJimmy CarterJimmy Carter (1924–2024) was an American politician and Democrat who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. His administration brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal treaties and established relations with the People’s Republic of China, but he lost his reelection bid amid the energy crisis, inflation and the Iran hostage crisis; after leaving office he founded The Carter Center to work on mediation, election observation and disease control, and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.Open the full entry appointed him to ACTION, the federal volunteer agency, where he served four years; Black Americans in Congress says he was appointed to head the agency, while the New Georgia Encyclopedia gives his post as associate director.⁠[1][3]

In 1981 he won an at-large seat on the Atlanta City Council, serving from 1982 to 1986, and he resigned in 1986 to run for Congress.⁠[3][2]

In 1986, when Wyche Fowler left the House to run for the Senate, John Lewis defeated Julian Bond in the Democratic primary runoff with 52 percent and won the general election with 75 percent. He took his seat in January 1987, representing Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, and was reelected for sixteen consecutive terms.⁠[1][3]

In 1987 he joined the Public Works and Transportation and the Interior and Insular Affairs committees, adding the Select Committee on Aging in the 101st Congress; from the 103rd Congress he served on the Ways and Means Committee, where he chaired the Subcommittee on Oversight, and in the 108th Congress he also served on the Budget Committee. He was chief deputy whip of the Democratic Caucus from 1989 and senior chief deputy whip in the 110th Congress. His bill creating the National Museum of African American History and Culture was signed into law in 2003.⁠[1]

On February 15, 2011, President Barack Obama presented him with the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom in the East Room of the White House, calling him “the conscience of the United States Congress.”⁠[4]

John Lewis died of pancreatic cancer on July 17, 2020. On July 27 and 28 he lay in state at the U.S. Capitol, with a private viewing for members of Congress in the Rotunda and a public viewing at the top of the East Front Steps. The Congressional Research Service notes that he was the third former House member who had held no other government office to lie in state, after Thaddeus Stevens and Elijah Cummings.⁠[3][5]

He met Lillian Miles, a librarian at Atlanta University, and they married in 1968; they had one son, John-Miles Lewis. Lillian Miles Lewis died in 2013.⁠[3]

His memoir Walking with the Wind (1998) won the Lillian Smith Book Award and a Georgia Writers Association award. The graphic novel trilogy March appeared as Book One (2013), Book Two (2015) and Book Three (2016); Book Three received a National Book Award.⁠[3]

His honors include the NAACP’s Spingarn Medal, the John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry Profile in Courage Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. J. T. Moye, author of the New Georgia Encyclopedia article, calls him “a preeminent leader of the modern American civil rights movement,” and Black Americans in Congress records that he was dubbed “the Conscience of the U.S. Congress.”⁠[3][1]

The John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation, which he conceived, carries on the couple’s work, focusing on youth civic engagement, preserving civil rights history and promoting “Good Trouble.”⁠[6]

United States House of Representatives: Official website: https://www.house.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[7]

John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation: Official website: https://johnandlillianmileslewisfoundation.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]