LEWIS, JOHN ROBERT (21 February 1940–17 July 2020), an American politician and civil rights activist who dedicated much of his life to protecting and building what he called the “Beloved Community.” Lewis served seventeen terms in the United States House of Representatives for Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District based in central Fulton (including Atlanta) and parts of DeKalb and Clayton counties from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was a prominent legislator and was known for his activist roots and leadership within the Democratic Party. Lewis also held various prominent positions, including as Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966. He was one of the “Big Six” leaders who organized the 1963 March on Washington, and he served in major roles in the Civil Rights movement and other actions to end the legal institutions of racial segregation in the US. For example, in 1965, Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where state troopers and police attacked Lewis and other marchers in an incident now known as Bloody Sunday. Lewis was known for often putting his own safety on the line in bold yet peaceful stands against discrimination that was often met with violence.
Born outside of Troy, Alabama, Lewis was the son of sharecroppers. His parents eventually saved enough money to purchase a 110-acre farm, which allowed them to escape the exploitative system of sharecropping in the South. Lewis grew up on this farm and attended Pike County’s segregated schools. After hearing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak on the radio, Lewis felt called to the ministry. In 1957, he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend American Baptist Theological Seminary and was ordained a Baptist minister. He then enrolled in Fisk University, a historically Black college, and received a bachelor’s degree in Religion and Philosophy.
Early in his career, Lewis took on a central role in the American Civil Rights movement. As a college student, he participated in nonviolent resistance, such as the sit-in protests to desegregate Nashville’s lunch counters in the spring of 1960. He was a founder of SNCC and later Chairman of its many chapters at colleges across the South. In 1961, Lewis, along with twelve others, were brutally beaten and endured lengthy arrests in the first Freedom Rides, which were organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and aimed to desegregate interstate commercial busing in the South. His commitment to nonviolent protest resulted in more than forty arrests between 1960 and 1966. In 1963, Lewis helped plan the March on Washington and delivered a keynote address at the Lincoln Memorial that called activists to “march through the South” in a sustained campaign of resistance in order to produce legislation capable of nullifying Jim Crow. In 1964, he worked with SNCC staff at the Freedom Summer campaign in Mississippi to help set up schools and register voters. Later that September, Lewis was part of a group of activists invited by the Guinean government to travel there to witness the building of a post-colonial nation. As an extension of this trip, Lewis also visited several other African nations, including Liberia, Ghana, Zambia, and Ethiopia. In Nairobi, Kenya, he met with Malcolm X.
Upon his return, Lewis embarked on new voter registration drives in Alabama and worked with King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to coordinate picket lines and protests. On Sunday, March 7, Lewis and hundreds of others marched to raise awareness of voter suppression. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, local law enforcement and state troopers descended on the group. Lewis suffered a fractured skull, and photos of the officers attacking him circulated across media outlets. The brutality served as a catalyst for congressional action. A few months later, in early August, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1977, Lewis first ran for Congress in a special election to replace Georgia Representative Andrew Young, who had resigned in order to serve as US Ambassador to the United Nations. That year, Lewis ran on a platform calling for strong federal anti-poverty programs. Lewis ultimately lost the election, but one month later, he was called by President Jimmy Carter to serve as Associate Director of the federal volunteer agency ACTION. In 1980, he resigned from that role in order to pursue a political career in Atlanta. In 1981, Lewis served on a seat in the Atlanta City Council in his first elected office. In 1986, Lewis ran against Representative Wyche Fowler for Georgia’s Fifth District seat. He entered a runoff with then-Georgia State Senator Julian Bond and eventually won in a narrow victory. Lewis would win and keep that seat by wide margins for the next two decades.
Lewis’s legislative agenda advanced civil rights, education, healthcare, and environmental justice during his tenure. His celebrated record of activism gave him a prominent place on Capitol Hill, but Lewis also carefully attended to the needs of his district, oftentimes securing federal funds for troubled inequities in Atlanta’s urban development. In addition to his work on local issues, Lewis used his seat as a platform for equality and human rights globally, particularly with regard to US foreign policy. In 1988, he was arrested during an anti-apartheid protest at the South African Embassy in Washington, DC. Lewis remained an activist for much of his career. In early June of 2020, he voiced support for the global uprising following the murder of George Floyd, which had taken place on May 25, 2020. In July of that year, John Lewis died in Atlanta of pancreatic cancer. He was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the US Capitol Rotunda.