John Lewis served as the U.S. Representative for Georgia's fifth congressional district until his death in 2020 and was widely regarded as a transformative leader in the U.S. civil rights movement.
Lewis grew up on a farm outside Troy, Alabama with his sharecropper parents and numerous brothers and sisters. After graduating from high school, Lewis attended American Baptist Theological Seminary. During his time as a student, Lewis organized protests and sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. Then, in 1961, Lewis volunteered for the first Freedom Rides, in which riders would challenge the segregation of buses and interstate terminals across the South. On...
