"In Memoriam..."

State troopers break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, 1965.

John Lewis is in the foreground. Photograph: AP

Civil Rights Activist and Politician John Lewis
A life in pictures from The Guardian

The civil rights leader John Lewis, known at the ‘conscience of America’, has died. Born the son of sharecroppers in Alabama on 21 February 1940, he attended segregated public schools and, inspired by the words of Martin Luther King Jr, became active in the civil rights movement. From university onwards he organised sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, took part in the Freedom Rides, was chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was a key speaker at the historic March on Washington in 1963. He led one of the pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that was brutally attacked by state troopers.

An arrest photo from 1961, when Lewis served 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi for ‘disorderly conduct’ - using a restroom labelled white.

Photograph: @repjohnlewis/twitter

Young Freedom Riders Lewis and James Zwerg stand together after being attacked and beaten by pro-segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama on 20 May 1961.

Photograph: Bettman/Corbis

Lewis being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi on 24 May 1961. 

He and 26 other Freedom Riders were arrested that day.

Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis

A portrait of Lewis taken in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1963.

Photograph: Steve Schapiro/Corbis

Lewis as Chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, addressing marchers at the  Lincoln Memorial in the March on Washington in August 1963. 

This was where Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech.

Photograph: Bettman/Corbis

Hosea Williams and Lewis in the lead, marchers move through Selma in a civil rights march to Montgomery, Alabama before reaching the Edmund Pettus Bridge and a bloody clash with state troops on 7 March 1965.

Photograph: Charles Moore/Black Star / Eyevine

Martin Luther King led a march later that same month from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. Beside King is Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy.

Photograph: Steve Schapiro/Corbis

Lewis is arrested in April 2009, during a protest against the humanitarian crisis in Darfur outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.

Photograph: Bill Clark/ Getty Images

Lewis is awarded the Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in February 2011.

Photograph: Brooks Kraft/Corbis

Lewis is again arrested, in 2013 at an immigration reform rally and march in Washington.

Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/epa/Corbis

In 2016, Lewis takes part in a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives, demanding that the Republican-led body vote on gun-control legislation in the wake of a shooting in Orlando.

Photograph: Handout/AFP/Getty Images

Lewis poses under a quote of his displayed in the Civil Rights Room in the Nashville Public Library in 2016, where he was awarded the Nashville Public Library Literary Award.

Photograph: Mark Humphrey/AP

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In 2017, on CBS Good Morning, John Lewis told his own story in the segment 'Note to Self'



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John Robert Lewis

February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020

"If not us, then who? If not now, then when?

Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did:https://t.co/KbVfYt5CeQ

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 18, 2020