Congressman John Lewis
Who was John Lewis?
John Robert Lewis was born in 1940 in Alabama to Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis. He is recognized as among the prominent leaders of the civil rights movement in the 1960s (Boehme, (2016). John Lewis grew in the racial segregation era and was influenced by Martin Luther King Jr, in joining the movement. Lewis was a freedom rider and led to the ‘Bloody Sunda.” demonstration.
Civil right struggle
He also served as the chairman of the SNCC in the 60s. As the civil rights movement leader, he spoke in Washington 1963 (Davis-McElligatt, 2017). Lewis was a freedom rider that endured brutal beatings and several arrests to end racial segregation on interstate buses in the southern state. In 1965, he suffered a skull fracture in the Bloody Sunday march for Selma’s voting rights.
Appointments
In 1971 he took over as the executive director of the voter education project a southern regional council project. In 1977, Lewis attempted his first contest for congress inside metro Atlanta and lost to a white politician inside the run-offs (Davis-McElligatt, 2017). Later the year he was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the associate director of action in a federal volunteer agency Lewis becomes a congressman in 1986 and was also awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
US congressman
Lewis got Atlanta city council seat in 1981. In 1986 he became a congressman in the House of Representatives and represented Georgia fifth district for the past years. John is one of the most respected congress members who has won reelections 16 times, mostly without oppositions (Parham & Clauss‐Ehlers, (2016). Since Lewis joined the office, he has advocated the fighting poverty, education improvements, and healthcare reforms. He also saw several renewals of the voting rights act.
Cancer diagnosis and death
In Dec 2019, he announced having been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Although he was optimistic about his treatments and medical advancements, Lewis passed away on 17 July 2020.
References
Boehme, G. (2016). John Lewis and Desegregation. Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC.
Davis-McElligatt, J. C. (2017). “Walk Together, Children”: The Function and Interplay of Comics, History, and Memory in Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story and John Lewis’s March: Book One. Graphic Novels for Children and Young Adults: A Collection of Critical Essays, 298.
Parham, W. D., & Clauss‐Ehlers, C. S. (2016). Celebrating our elders who led us across the bridge: A call to action for the academy. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development, 44(1), 4-27.