Participating in a transformative movement that advocated human dignity and changed America forever.
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John Lewis
U.S. Representative from Georgia, 1987–2020; Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee 1963–1966
United States · 1940–2020
Politics and public life
About
Served in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia from 1987 until his death in 2020. Chaired the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, was one of the original Freedom Riders, and led the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he was badly beaten.
16 answers
I would come home and ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, 'Why?'. And they would say, 'That's the way it is. Don't get in the way, don't get in trouble!'
Recorded
Emory University Quadrangle, Atlanta, Speakola (speech transcript archive), 12 May 2014
source ↗
More than anything else, I had to combat the barriers, and we tore down those barriers. I just had to set a sail against the wind, those strong winds, to end segregation and racial discrimination, but somehow, in some way, I didn’t let those barriers keep me down.
There are many battles. There’s so much that needs to be done. We need to protect the environment. Save this little planet. Not just this little piece of real estate we call America, but save the planet.
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