Born: 21-Feb-1940
Birthplace: Troy, AL
Gender: Male
Religion: Baptist
Ethnicity: Black
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Politician
Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Congressman, Georgia 5th
Wife: Lillian Miles
Son: John Miles Lewis
John Robert Lewis a Champion of Civil Rights was born to a family of sharecroppers outside of Troy, Alabama, at a time when African Americans in the South were subjected to a humiliating segregation in education and all public facilities, and were effectively prevented from voting by systematic discrimination and intimidation.
From an early age, John Lewis was committed to the goal of education for himself, and justice for his people. Inspired by the example of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Montgomery bus boycott, he corresponded with Dr. King and resolved to join the struggle for civil rights.
He was recognized as one of the “Big Six” leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, alongside with Dr. King, Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer and Roy Wilkins. He was one of the planners and keynote speakers of the March on Washington in August 1963, the occasion of Dr. King’s celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech
As Director of the Voter Education Project (VEP), he helped bring nearly four million new minority voters into the democratic process. For the first time since Reconstruction, African Americans were running for public office in the South, and winning
In 1986 he ran for Congress, and John Lewis, whose own parents had been prevented from voting, who had been denied access to the schools and libraries of his home town, who had been threatened, jailed and beaten for trying to register voters, was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Since then he has been re-elected repeatedly by overwhelming margins, on one occasion running unopposed. Today, he represents Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, encompassing the entire city of Atlanta and parts of four surrounding counties
His courage and integrity have won him the admiration of congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle via: Archievement
Tags:John R. Lewis, Civil Right,
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