Congressman John Lewis Dies, Leaves Legacy As Civil Rights Leader

Congressman John Lewis died after a battle with pancreatic cancer. Lewis announced his diagnosis in December. He was 80-years-old.

Lewis began his long history as a Civil Rights leader during his college years in Nashville. He was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington as the president of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. And, the beating he survived from Alabama law enforcement officers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday” as demonstrators marched to Montgomery, the state capital, to advocate for voting rights fractured his skull and served as a powerful example of the violence Lewis and others frequently faced in their struggle for racial equality.

Recently, Netflix featured Lewis in a documentary about his life. John Lewis is preceded in death by his wife and leaves to mourn his passing his children, siblings, fellow Congressional leaders, and supporters around the world.