*John Lewis (D-GA), the renowned civil rights leader who served as a symbol of the movement throughout his more than three decades in Congress, died Friday at the age of 80 from pancreatic cancer.
Here’s more via The Hill:
From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. on “Bloody Sunday,” Lewis decisively carved a place for himself in the history books as a courageous young activist during the height of the civil rights movement.
He was elected to Congress in 1986 and served 17 terms representing an Atlanta-area district. While in Congress, Lewis served as a physical reminder of how far the country had come on civil rights — and how much more was left to be done.
Lewis, the youngest keynote speaker at the March on Washington in 1963, was the only person who delivered remarks at the event to witness Barack Obama winning election as the nation’s first African American president 45 years later.
When Lewis asked Obama to sign a commemorative photograph at his 2009 inauguration, the newly sworn-in president wrote: “Because of you, John.”
Lewis was born on Feb. 21, 1940 to a family of sharecroppers on a farm outside of Troy, Ala., and attended segregated public schools. Inspired by the activism demonstrated by Montgomery Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis began his work of what he liked to call “good trouble.
Get the full story at The Hill.
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