Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com
By Kathy Wray Coleman, associate publisher, editor in chief. Coleman trained for 17 years as a reporter with the Call and Post Newspaper and is an investigative and political reporter with a background in legal and scientific reporting. She is also a former 15-year public school biology teacher.
SELMA, Alabama –People lined the streets of Selma, Alabama Sunday afternoon to pay tribute to the late Georgia congressman John Lewis, who made his final trip Sunday across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a horse drawn carriage that held his casket, the same bridge that he first crossed along side of the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr more than 55-years-ago to demand passage of the Voting Rights Act.
When the young 25-year-old Lewis marched across the bridge from Selma to Montgomery with Dr. King decades ago on Sunday, March 7, 1965, he and other Civil Rights advocates were beaten, brutalized, and bloodied.
They would return to cross the bridge year after year to celebrate the anniversary of "Bloody Sunday," a turning point in the Civil Rights movement.
But on Sunday he crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge for his last journey in a horse buggy that carried his casket, one of several activities scheduled to celebrate the life of the revered Black federal legislator.
The series of events, which began July 25 in his home town of Troy, Alabama, and will end in Atlanta where he lived for more than 30 years until his death, include the congressman lying in state in Montgomery, the capital city of Alabama.
Lewis will lie in repose inside the U.S. Capitol. on July 27-28, U.S.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday, and private funeral services are July 30 at Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary at 11:00 a.m.
The son of sharecroppers and a community activist who rose to become one of the most respected and distinguished members of Congress, Lewis died July 17 in Atlanta Georgia at 80-years-old, and following a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer.
A former Georgia state legislator out of Atlanta and 17-term Democratic Congressman who represented Georgia's 5th congressional district, Lewis was a fighter by all accounts.
His great grandfather was born into slavery.
He lost his first bid for Congress and later won the seat in 1986 against his Republican challenger, and following a contentious and now infamous fight against Julian Bond during the Democratic primary he later won, Bond a prominent Black Georgia state senator at the time.
One of 10 siblings, he was 16-years-old when he fought to desegregate public libraries in Troy and against Jim Crow Laws.
While in college in Nashville studying theology on a scholarship he was a member of the activist student group the Freedom Riders that fought against racial segregation and to desegregate lunch counters in the city and became a symbol of the student movement for racial equality.
He said that that his true activism was inspired by the Montgomery Bus Boycotts that took place when he was 18-years-old, and the sermons of Dr King on the radio.
He fought with Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that King, a Civil Rights icon assassinated in 1968, led during the height of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and spoke at the March on Washington in 1963 in spite of fears by then president John F. Kennedy that his speech might be too radical.
At 23-years-old he was the youngest speaker at the event in Washington, and gave a dynamic speech, pundits said, a speech overshadowed by Dr. King's historic "I Have a A Dream Speech."
He was arrested for civil disobedience more that 44 times, 40 of those arrests occurring before he was elected to Congress.
A recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 from former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, and a minster of the gospel whose legacy will remain of an unmatched stature, Lewis never stopped fighting for justice for the underprivileged and the disenfranchised.
One of his last public appearances was a town hall with Obama.
A husband and father, Lewis loved Black people, unequivocally.
He was married to his wife Lillian for nearly 50 years, and until her death in 2012.
Whether fighting for public policy changes for his constituents in particular, or for the country as a whole, overtime he drew the love and respect of his fellow lawmakers.
He was a biblical figure on a mission, and in spite of his stubbornness at times he had friends and enemies across partisan lines.
But he was also a staunch Democrat who despised the policies of President Donald Trump, Trump a Republican who faces former president Joe Biden for a Nov. 3 presidential election showdown.
He was one of the first members of Congress to aggressively stand up against the Trump presidency, and he never backed down.
Considered a hard- core liberal in Congress by some accounts, Lewis opposed the U.S waging of the 1991 Gulf War, and the Clinton Administration on NAFTA and welfare reform.
The federal lawmaker fought against the reversal of decades of Civil Rights gains and spoke out against the U.S. Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County vs Holder, a decision in which the high court invalidated key provision of the Voting Rights Act, thereby lessening government over watch of state voting rules and making it easier for state officials to make it harder for Black and other racio- ethic minority voters to vote.
During his 30-plus years in Congress representing a district in the seep South Lewis opposed the Iraq War and also fought in Congress for public policies in support of voting rights, reproductive rights for women, affirmative action, gun control, human and Civil Rights, universal healthcare and the gamete of issues embraced by the liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
He backed same sex marriage which became legal across all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2015.
His legacy, however, transcends the Democratic Party that he had no problem challenging on matters he deemed necessary to address.
The National Museum of African American History opened on the National Mall in Washington D.C. in 2016 during Obama's tenure, Lewis the impetus for the congressional bill that led to funding for the historical monument.
Lewis ultimately supported Obama for the Democratic primary in 2008 that Obama won over Hillary Clinton, and he backed him again in 2012 for his successful reelection campaign for president.
Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, the most read Black digital newspaper in Ohio and in the Midwest. Tel: (216) 659-0473. Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview. CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.
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