John Lewis

(1940 - 2020)

Born in Troy, Alabama, the civil rights leader John Lewis was the youngest person to speak at the 1963 March on Washington; at the time he was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. “We are tired,” he told the crowd. “We are tired of being beat by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again, and then you holler ‘Be patient.’ How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now.” He won his first House race in Georgia in 1986, after defeating Julian Bond in a primary runoff. He was reelected sixteen times. During the nationwide protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, Lewis said in an interview, “This feels and looks so different. It is so much more massive and all inclusive. There will be no turning back.”