by Sherri Kolade
Civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) died a year ago on July 19 — and his life is still remembered to this day.
The legislator, freedom fighter and justice warrior, who was famously beaten, bloodied and arrested in Selma, Alabama — and in other cities across the Jim Crow South — during the struggle for civil rights and racial equality, was 80 years old.
Former president Barack Obama expressed his sorrow previously.
“John Lewis – one of the original Freedom Riders, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the people of Georgia for 33 years – not only assumed that responsibility, he made it his life’s work,” Obama observed.
“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”
On March 7, 1965, as Lewis and others journeyed across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, a mob of state troopers clad in riot gear attacked.
The authorities began their onslaught on Lewis and the other marchers using tear gas before brutally escalating the assault to bullwhips and rubber tubing that had been wrapped in barbed wire.
One of the cops attacked Lewis with a nightstick, fracturing his skull and knocking him to the ground.
In the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, Lewis praised this generation of freedom fighters. “This feels and looks so different,” he said of the Black Lives Matter movement and other ongoing demonstrations.
“It is so much more massive and all-inclusive. There will be no turning back.”
One of the nation’s greatest champions of civil rights for more than a half-century, Congressman John Lewis is being remembered today worldwide on the first anniversary of his death.
Vice President Kamala Harris made a statement about Lewis in the article:
“Today marks the one-year anniversary of the passing of Congressman John Lewis. As we mourn his loss, we reflect on the legacy of an American hero. Congressman Lewis fought tirelessly for our country’s highest ideals: freedom and justice for all, and for the right of every American to make their voice heard at the ballot box.
I had the privilege of joining Congressman Lewis in Selma, Alabama for what would be his final walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where, 55 years earlier, he and many others were beaten bloody by state troopers as they marched for the right to vote.
Today, the fight is not over. The right to vote remains under attack in states across our nation. And the best way to honor Congressman Lewis’s legacy is to carry on the fight – by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act as well as the For the People Act, and by helping eligible voters no matter where they live get registered and vote, and have their vote counted.
As the Congressman knew well, our democracy is stronger when everyone participates—and it is weaker when people are left out.”
Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior Correspondent contributed to this report.
Read the full story here.
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