John Lewis, congressman and leader of civil rights movement, dead at 80

John Lewis, a US congressman who and leader of the civil rights movement, has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.

Civil rights icon and 17-term Georgia Republican John Lewis died Friday in Atlanta, The Associated Press has reported.

He was 80.

Lewis, the son of Alabama sharecroppers whose fight for racial equality spanned seven decades, had waged a long battle with advanced pancreatic cancer, a diagnosis he shared in December, 2019.

“All of us were humbled to call Congressman Lewis a colleague, and are heartbroken by his passing,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement confirming the death.

“May his memory be an inspiration that moves us all to, in the face of injustice, make ‘good trouble, necessary trouble,’” she said, using a favourite quote of the lawmaker.

Congressman and civil rights warrior, John Lewis. Picture: Saul Loeb/AFP.

John Lewis marching with Martin Luther King, Jr., 1966: pic.twitter.com/kDYiugYT0C

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 18, 2020

As Freedom Rider, John Lewis was attacked in Rock Hill, South Carolina, May 1961: pic.twitter.com/IOxSSHO4hv

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) July 18, 2020

First elected in 1986 and lauded as the “Conscious of Congress,” Lewis, a staunch Democrat, commanded respect from both sides of the aisle.

But he forged his reputation in the 1960s, most notably during the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, during which he suffered a skull fracture at the end of a police billy club.

“There is still work yet to be done,” he urged during a 50th anniversary event at the bridge in 2015.

“Get out there and push and pull until we redeem the soul of America.”

As one of the original Freedom Riders, in 1961 he joined with black and white protesters in challenging segregation at a Mississippi bus station, spending 37 days in a sweltering, Jackson jail after using a “whites only” bathroom.

59 years ago today I was released from Parchman Farm Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson, MS for using a so-called "white" restroom during the Freedom Rides of 1961. pic.twitter.com/OUfgeaNDOm

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) July 7, 2020

John Lewis was known for this iconic photo which captured a state trooper swining a billy club at him (pictured right foreground) in a bid to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama. Lewis sustained a fractured skull. Picture: AP.

Two years later, Lewis was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington in 1963, which he helped organise as a 23-year-old.

“We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of,” Lewis said back then, during the march from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

“For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. For they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all.”

He continued:

“We are tired. We are tired of being beaten 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.”

John Lewis was presented with the 2010 Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2011. Picture: Alex Wong/AFP.

Lewis had remained active in politics throughout the spring.

In April, he endorsed Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency, telling reporters, “It is my belief that we need Joe Biden now more than ever before.”

He said in a statement at the time, “I have stared down the deepest, and darkest forces in this nation.

“Vice President Joe Biden and I both believe that we are in a fight to redeem the soul of America.

“I know Joe Biden as a man of character and dignity — a man who cannot, and will not rest when he sees injustice in our American home.”

Touchingly, fellow pancreatic cancer victim Alex Trebek had in January challenged Lewis to join him in surviving 2020.

This article originally appeared on the NY Post and was reproduced with permission