Lewis, John

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Lewis, John

February 21, 1940

Civil rights activist and politician John Lewis was born near the town of Troy, in Pike County, Alabama. Lewis grew up on a small farm and was one of ten children in a poor sharecropping family. He had been drawn to the ministry since he was a child, and in fulfillment of his lifelong dream he entered the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1957. He received his B.A. four years later. As a seminary student, Lewis participated in nonviolence workshops and programs taught by James Lawson—a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR), a pacifist civil rights organization. Lewis became a field secretary for FOR and attended the Highlander Folk School, an interracial adult education center in Tennessee that was committed to social change, where he was deeply influenced by Septima Clark, the director of education.

Lewis became an active participant in the growing civil rights movement and a member of the Nashville Student Movement. Along with Diane Nash Bevel, James Bevel, and other African-American students, he participated in the Nashville desegregation campaigns of 1960. Lewis was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 and played a leading role in organizing SNCC participation in the Congress of Racial Equality's (CORE) freedom rides. He led freedom rides in South Carolina and Alabama, where he and the other protesters were violently attacked by southern whites.

Lewis rose to a leadership position within SNCC, serving as national chairman from 1963 to 1966. During the 1963 March on Washington, Lewis—representing SNCC—delivered a highly controversial speech that criticized the federal government's consistent failure to protect civil rights workers, condemned the civil rights bill as "too little, too late," and called on African Americans to participate actively in civil rights protests until "the unfinished revolution of 1776 is complete." Although he had acceded to the march organizers' and other participants' request and allowed his speech to be severely edited to tone down its militant rhetoric, it was still considered by most people in attendance to be the most radical speech of the day.

In March 1965 Lewis marched with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, to agitate for a voting rights act that would safeguard African Americans' access to the franchise. He was one of the many participants severely beaten by state troopers on what became known as Bloody Sunday. By 1966 Lewis's continued advocacy of nonviolence had made him an anachronism in the increasingly militant SNCC. He resigned from the organization in June of that year, to be succeeded as chairperson by Stokely Carmichael. Lewis continued his civil rights activities as part of the Field Foundation from 1966 to 1967 and worked as director of community organization projects for the Southern Regional Council. In 1970 he was appointed director of the Voter Education Project, which promoted black empowerment through greater participation in electoral politics.

Lewis became more directly involved in the political arena six years later, when President Carter appointed him to serve on the staff of ACTION—a government agency that coordinated volunteer activities. From 1981 to 1986 he served on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, in a bitter race, he challenged and defeated Julian Bond—another civil rights veteran—for an Atlanta congressional seat. In Congress Lewis became an influential member of the House Ways and Means Committee. He was an advocate of civil rights and was highly praised for his political acumen. In 1998 he was reelected from Georgia's Fifth Congressional District for a seventh term.

In 2004 Lewis was a recipient of the Freedom Award, given by the National Civil Rights Museum.