March (Lewis)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 21, 1940
• Where—Troy, Alabama, USA
• Education—American Baptist Theological Seminary, Fisk University
• Currently—lives in Atlanta, Georgia


Congressman John Lewis first joined the civil rights movement as a college student in Nashville, organizing sit-ins and participating in the first Freedom Rides. He soon became the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and one of the “Big Six” national leaders of the movement, alongside such figures as Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph.

He was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington and a leader of the 1965 Selma–Montgomery March (known as “Bloody Sunday”), where police brutality spurred national outrage and hastened passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. His subsequent career has included voter registration activism, service on the Atlanta City Council, and over 25 years in Congress.

Lewis received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, and was the first recipient of the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage” Lifetime Achievement Award.

His 1998 book Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, called “the definitive account of the civil rights movement” (Washington Post), won numerous honors, including the Robert F. Kennedy, Lillian Smith, and Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, and was named “Top of the List” by the American Library Association’s Booklist.

His most recent book, Across that Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change, received the NAACP Image Award. (From the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/21/2014.)