/https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f230b018d572fad7a058bf4/0x0.jpg?cropX1=0&cropX2=3648&cropY1=111&cropY2=2163&w=1920&resize=1920,0&ssl=1 "Obama Honors Civil Rights Icon John Lewis At Georgia Funeral: ‘He Always Saw The Best In Us’ (Photos)")
TOPLINE
John Lewis was laid to rest in Atlanta, Georgia, the city the late civil rights leader represented in Congress for over 30 years, in a Thursday funeral service attended by three former presidents.
Former President Barack Obama, addresses the service during the funeral for the late Rep. John … [+]
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KEY FACTS
Among those paying their respects to Lewis at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. and his father served as pastors, were former presidents Barack Obama, George Bush and Bill Clinton, House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
After words from Bush, describing Lewis’s childhood in Troy, Alabama, including an anecdote of a young Lewis preaching to his family’s chickens, Clinton traced Lewis’s storied history as a civil rights leader, praising him for “a mission that was bigger than personal ambition.”
“He hoped for and imagined and lived and worked and moved for his beloved community, and he took a savage beating on more than one day,” said Clinton, pointing to Lewis’s essay published posthumously in The New York Times as evidence of his unfaltering commitment to equality: “It’s so fitting on the day of his service, he gives us our marching orders: keep moving.”
Pelosi spoke to his 17 terms as a congressman, noting Lewis’s “mischievous” demeanor and the “twinkle in his eye” while encouraging “good trouble” at the Capitol, which—highlighting Lewis’s involvement in the Democratic policing reform bill following George Floyd’s death—Pelosi said lasted until his July 17 death at 80 years-old.
Following dedications from friends, family and colleagues, Obama delivered a eulogy for Lewis, his former mentor: “I like so many Americans owe a great debt to John Lewis.”
“The life of John Lewis was in so many ways exceptional,” said Obama, “he vindicated that faith—that ordinary people without wealth, title or fame can somehow point out the imperfections of this nation and come together and challenge the status quo, and decide it’s within our power to remake this country we love until it more closely aligns with our highest ideals. What a radical idea.”
Crucial quote
“As a boy John listened through the door after bedtime as his father’s friends complained about the [Ku Klux] Klan,” recalled Obama. “One Sunday as a teenager he heard Martin Luther King preach on the radio. John Lewis was getting something inside his head. An idea he couldn’t shake took hold of him—that non violent resistance and civil disobedience were the means to change laws but also change hearts and change minds and change nations and change the world.”
Members of an Honor Guard place the casket of the late Rep. John Lewis.
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The Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Lewis is being laid to rest.
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Former President George W. Bush speaks during the funeral service.
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John Lewis’s sister at the funeral service.
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Former president Bill Clinton remembers his friend: “I just loved him. I always will.”
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A funeral-goer becomes emotional after activist James Lawson reads Lewis’ favorite poem, “Invictus.”
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House speaker Nancy Pelosi thanks Lewis on behalf of his “official family,” saying: “We always knew … [+]
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Activist James Lawson ties Lewis’s legacy to the ongoing Black Lives Matter movement. “We will not … [+]
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Former president Barack Obama condemned police “kneeling on the necks of Black Americans,” the … [+]
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KEY BACKGROUND
Since his death, Lewis has been celebrated for his contributions to politics and civil rights from a young age. On Monday, Lewis became the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, one of the highest American honors. Throughout his life—and even in a New York Times essay published posthumously on Thursday—Lewis encouraged “good trouble” to combat discrimination. As a young man, Lewis participated in protests and nonviolent demonstrations to combat racism in the Jim Crow South. He was a Freedom Fighter in the ‘60s and at 25, led a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, that ended in a violent clash with police and Lewis being beaten. “Bloody Sunday” goes down in history as a watershed day in the fight for civil rights which resulted in the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. “John was struck in the skull and thought he was going to die,” Obama explained. “I imagine initially that day the troopers thought they’d won the battle.” Lewis also spoke at the March on Washington at 23-years-old and helped desegregate Nashville, Tennessee. In 2011, Obama awarded Lewis the Medal of Freedom for his service to the country.
Further Reading
“John Lewis Has The Final Word In Posthumous Essay: ‘Democracy Is Not A State. It Is An Act.’” (Forbes)
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