John Lewis
John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and
civil rights activist who served in the
United States House of Representatives for from 1987 until his death in 2020. He participated in the 1960
Nashville sit-ins, the
Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "
Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963
March on Washington. Fulfilling many key roles in the
civil rights movement and its actions to end legalized
racial segregation in the United States, in 1965 Lewis led the first of three
Selma to Montgomery marches across the
Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident which became known as
Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.
A member of the
Democratic Party, Lewis was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1986 and served 17 terms. The district he represented included most of
Atlanta. Due to his length of service, he became the dean of the
Georgia congressional delegation. Lewis was one of the leaders of the Democratic Party in the House, serving from 1991 as a
chief deputy whip and from 2003 as a
senior chief deputy whip. He received many honorary degrees and awards, including the
Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2012.
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