Congressman John R. Lewis - Academy of Achievement

<!doctype html> <html lang="en-US" prefix="og: http://ogp.me/ns#"> <head><script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/bundle-playback.js?v=HxkREWBo" charset="utf-8"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/wombat.js?v=txqj7nKC" charset="utf-8"></script> <script>window.RufflePlayer=window.RufflePlayer||{};window.RufflePlayer.config={"autoplay":"on","unmuteOverlay":"hidden"};</script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/_static/js/ruffle/ruffle.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> __wm.init("https://web.archive.org/web"); __wm.wombat("http://www.achievement.org:80/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis","20181007204934","https://web.archive.org/","web","/_static/", "1538945374"); </script> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/banner-styles.css?v=S1zqJCYt" /> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/_static/css/iconochive.css?v=3PDvdIFv" />  <meta charset="utf-8"> <meta http-equiv="x-ua-compatible" content="ie=edge"> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="57x57" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-57x57.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="114x114" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-114x114.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="72x72" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-72x72.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="144x144" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-144x144.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="60x60" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-60x60.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="120x120" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-120x120.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="76x76" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-76x76.png"/> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" sizes="152x152" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/apple-touch-icon-152x152.png"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-196x196.png" sizes="196x196"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-96x96.png" sizes="96x96"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-32x32.png" sizes="32x32"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-16x16.png" sizes="16x16"/> <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/favicon-128.png" sizes="128x128"/> <meta name="application-name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileColor" content="#000000"/> <meta name="msapplication-TileImage" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-144x144.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square70x70logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-70x70.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square150x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-150x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-wide310x150logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x150.png"/> <meta name="msapplication-square310x310logo" content="http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/favicon/mstile-310x310.png"/> <link href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934cs_/https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Source+Sans+Pro:400,600,400italic,600italic,700,700italic" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"> <title>Congressman John R. Lewis - Academy of Achievement</title>  <meta name="description" content=""I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence." By age 23, John Lewis was already recognized as one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he led his first demonstrations while studying theology in Nashville, Tennessee. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he was a leader in many of the most dramatic campaigns of the movement: the lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. He suffered serious injuries from mob violence and personal physical attacks, and would be arrested more than 40 times, but John Lewis would not be dissuaded from the pursuit of justice. In 1965 he led the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers, and John Lewis had his skull fractured, but the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, finally committing the federal government to the enforcement of voting rights for all Americans. Over the following decades, John Lewis led an explosion of minority voter registration that has transformed American politics. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. For more than 20 years, he has represented the City of Atlanta, Georgia and surrounding counties in Congress, where he remains one of America's most courageous champions of human rights. "/> <link rel="canonical" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"/> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"/> <meta property="og:type" content="article"/> <meta property="og:title" content="Congressman John R. Lewis - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence."</p> <p class="inputText">By age 23, John Lewis was already recognized as one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he led his first demonstrations while studying theology in Nashville, Tennessee.</p> <p class="inputText">As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he was a leader in many of the most dramatic campaigns of the movement: the lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. He suffered serious injuries from mob violence and personal physical attacks, and would be arrested more than 40 times, but John Lewis would not be dissuaded from the pursuit of justice. In 1965 he led the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers, and John Lewis had his skull fractured, but the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, finally committing the federal government to the enforcement of voting rights for all Americans.</p> <p class="inputText">Over the following decades, John Lewis led an explosion of minority voter registration that has transformed American politics. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. For more than 20 years, he has represented the City of Atlanta, Georgia and surrounding counties in Congress, where he remains one of America's most courageous champions of human rights.</p> "/> <meta property="og:url" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"/> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Academy of Achievement"/> <meta property="og:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <meta property="og:image:width" content="2800"/> <meta property="og:image:height" content="1120"/> <meta name="twitter:card" content="summary"/> <meta name="twitter:description" content="<p class="inputTextFirst">"I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence."</p> <p class="inputText">By age 23, John Lewis was already recognized as one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he led his first demonstrations while studying theology in Nashville, Tennessee.</p> <p class="inputText">As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he was a leader in many of the most dramatic campaigns of the movement: the lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. He suffered serious injuries from mob violence and personal physical attacks, and would be arrested more than 40 times, but John Lewis would not be dissuaded from the pursuit of justice. In 1965 he led the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers, and John Lewis had his skull fractured, but the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, finally committing the federal government to the enforcement of voting rights for all Americans.</p> <p class="inputText">Over the following decades, John Lewis led an explosion of minority voter registration that has transformed American politics. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. For more than 20 years, he has represented the City of Atlanta, Georgia and surrounding counties in Congress, where he remains one of America's most courageous champions of human rights.</p> "/> <meta name="twitter:title" content="Congressman John R. Lewis - Academy of Achievement"/> <meta name="twitter:image" content="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis-Feature-Image-2800x1120.jpg"/> <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181007204934\/http:\/\/schema.org","@type":"WebSite","@id":"#website","url":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181007204934\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/","name":"Academy of Achievement","alternateName":"A museum of living history","potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20181007204934\/http:\/\/www.achievement.org\/search\/{search_term_string}","query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}</script> <script 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[(max-width:992px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis-Feature-Image-2800x1120-1400x560.jpg"></div> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <figcaption class="feature-area__text ratio-container__text container"> <div class="feature-area__text-inner text-white"> <h2 class="serif-8 feature-area__text-subhead back"><a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever">All achievers</a></h2> <h1 class="serif-1 entry-title feature-area__text-headline">Congressman John R. Lewis</h1> <h5 class="sans-6 feature-area__blurb">Champion of Civil Rights</h5> </div> </figcaption> </div> </div> </figure> </header> </div>  <nav class="in-page-nav row fixedsticky"> <ul class="nav text-xs-center clearfix" role="tablist"> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link active" data-toggle="tab" href="#biography" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Biography">Biography</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#profile" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Profile">Profile</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#interview" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Interview">Interview</a> </li> <li class="nav-item col-xs-3"> <a class="nav-link" data-toggle="tab" href="#gallery" role="tab" data-gtm-category="tab" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever Gallery">Gallery</a> </li> </ul> </nav> <article class="post-1701 achiever type-achiever status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry careers-activist careers-politician"> <div class="entry-content container clearfix">  <div class="tab-content"> <div class="tab-pane fade in active" id="biography" role="tabpanel"> <section class="achiever--biography"> <div class="banner clearfix"> <div class="banner--single clearfix"> <div class="col-lg-8 col-lg-offset-2"> <div class="banner__image__container"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-road-to-civil-rights/id502858497?mt=13" target="_blank"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <img class="lazyload banner__image" data-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/256X256-civilrightsbook-newwebsite-BE002421-Corbis-coretta-march-190x190.jpg" alt=""/> </figure> </a> </div> <div class="banner__text__container"> <h3 class="serif-3 banner__headline"> <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/the-road-to-civil-rights/id502858497?mt=13" target="_blank"> Download our free multi-touch iBook <i>The Road to Civil Rights</i> — for your Mac or iOS device on Apple's iTunes U </a> </h3> <p class="sans-6 banner__text m-b-0"><i>The Road to Civil Rights</i> iBook takes readers on a journey through one of the most significant periods in America’s history. Travel through the timeline and listen to members of the American Academy of Achievement as they discuss the key events that shaped the future of the country.</p> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="row"> <header class="editorial-article__header col-md-8 col-md-offset-2 text-xs-center"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> <h3 class="serif-3 quote-marks">I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living.</h3> </header> </div> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar clearfix"> <h2 class="serif-3 p-b-1">Presidential Medal of Freedom</h2> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 21, 1940 </dd> </div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p class="inputtextfirst">John Lewis was born to a family of sharecroppers outside of Troy, Alabama, at a time when African Americans in the South were subjected to a humiliating segregation in education and all public facilities, and were effectively prevented from voting by systematic discrimination and intimidation.</p> <figure id="attachment_8796" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-8796 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-8796 size-full lazyload" alt="Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Their words and actions inspired the young John Lewis. (© UPI/Bettman)" width="2280" height="1705" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003-380x284.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003-760x568.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Their words and actions inspired the young John Lewis. (Bettman)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">From an early age, John Lewis was committed to the goal of education for himself, and justice for his people. Inspired by the example of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Montgomery bus boycott, he corresponded with Dr. King and resolved to join the struggle for civil rights. After attending segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama, he graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee and completed a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy at Fisk University.</p> <figure id="attachment_20026" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20026 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20026 size-full lazyload" alt="Civil rights leaders, including John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., hold a news conference in Montgomery, Alabama and announce that the Freedom Rides will continue, May 23, 1961." width="2280" height="2283" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623-190x190.jpg 190w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623-380x380.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623-760x760.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1961: Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. in Montgomery, Alabama announcing the Freedom Rides will continue.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">As a student he made a systematic study of the techniques and philosophy of nonviolence, and with his fellow students prepared thoroughly for their first actions. They began with sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. Day after day, Lewis and his fellow students sat silently at lunch counters where they were harassed, spit upon, beaten and finally arrested and held in jail, but they persisted in the sit-ins. In 1961, Lewis joined fellow students on the Freedom Rides, challenging the segregation of interstate buses. In the Montgomery bus terminal, he was again attacked by a mob and brutally beaten.</p> <figure id="attachment_20046" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20046 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20046 size-full lazyload" alt="John Lewis, age 23, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during the historic March on Washington, August 28, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" width="1280" height="720" data-sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium.jpg 1280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium-380x214.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium-760x428.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">John Lewis, age 23, speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during the historic March on Washington, August 28, 1963.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Lewis was one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and served as its president from 1963 to 1966 when SNCC was at the forefront of the student movement for civil rights. By 1963, he was recognized as one of the “Big Six” leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, along with Dr. King, Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer and Roy Wilkins. He was one of the planners and keynote speakers of the March on Washington in August 1963, the occasion of Dr. King’s celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech.</p> <figure id="attachment_20028" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20028 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20028 size-full lazyload" alt="State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. At foreground right is John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," is widely credited for galvanizing the nation's leaders and ultimately yielding passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)" width="2280" height="1417" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551-380x236.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551-760x472.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965. At foreground right is John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who is beaten by a state trooper. That historic violent day, which became known as “Bloody Sunday,” is widely acknowledged for galvanizing the nation’s leaders and ultimately yielding passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP)</figcaption></figure> <p class="inputtext">In 1964, Lewis coordinated SNCC’s efforts for “Mississippi Freedom Summer,” a campaign to register black voters across the South. The following year, Lewis led one of the most dramatic protests of the era. On March 7, 1965 — a day that would become known as “Bloody Sunday” — Lewis and fellow activist Hosea Williams led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. At the end of the bridge, they were met by Alabama state troopers, who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged tear gas and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with nightsticks. Lewis’s skull was fractured, but he escaped across the bridge to a church in Selma. Before he could be taken to the hospital, John Lewis appeared before the television cameras calling on President Johnson to intervene in Alabama.</p> <figure id="attachment_47287" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-47287 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-47287 lazyload" alt="" width="2280" height="1540" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424-380x257.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424-760x513.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">March 25, 1965: American religious and Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929 – 1968) speaks from a pulpit in front of the Montgomery State Capitol building at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March in Montgomery, Alabama. Dr. King delivered the speech generally referred to as ‘How Long, Not Long’ (or ‘Our God Is Marching On!’). Among those pictured are American author James Baldwin (1924 – 1987) (seated bottom left), activist Bayard Rustin (1912 – 1987) (with cigarette in his mouth), Bernard Lee (in V-neck sweater and glasses) and John Lewis (arms crossed), both of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and between them, union leader A. Philip Randolph (1889 – 1979), and Dr. King’s wife, activist Coretta Scott King (1927 – 2006) (in sunglasses, behind microphones). The pulpit, from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was the one from which King had preached during his tenure at the Montgomery church. (Photo: Steve Schapiro/Corbis via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Scenes of the violence, and of the injured John Lewis, were broadcast around the world, and outraged public opinion demanded that the president take action. Two days later, Dr. King led 1,000 members of the clergy on a second march from Selma to Montgomery, with the eyes of the world watching. A week and a day after Bloody Sunday, President Johnson appeared before a joint session of Congress to demand passage of the Voting Rights Act, empowering the federal government to enforce the voting rights of all Americans. The passage of the voting rights act finally brought the federal government into the struggle, squarely on the side of the disenfranchised voters of the South.</p> <figure id="attachment_20033" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20033 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20033 size-full lazyload" alt="In 1965, John Lewis (far right) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center) leads a march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the denial of voting rights to African Americans. (© Steve Schapiro/Corbis)" width="2280" height="1673" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724-380x279.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724-760x558.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">In 1965, John Lewis (far right) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center) leads a march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the denial of voting rights to African Americans. (© Steve Schapiro/Corbis)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">The violent deaths of his friends Martin Luther King, Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy in 1968 were a great blow to John Lewis, but Lewis remained committed as ever to the philosophy of nonviolence. As Director of the Voter Education Project (VEP), he helped bring nearly four million new minority voters into the democratic process. For the first time since Reconstruction, African Americans were running for public office in the South, and winning.</p> <figure id="attachment_20025" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20025 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20025 size-full lazyload" alt="President Lyndon B. Johnson meeting at the White House with civil rights activists, including John Lewis and James Farmer, August 8, 1965." width="2280" height="1526" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a-380x254.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a-760x509.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1965: President Johnson meeting at the White House with civil rights activists John Lewis and James Farmer.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Lewis settled in Atlanta, Georgia, and when the former Governor of Georgia, Jimmy Carter, became President, he tapped John Lewis to head the federal volunteer agency, ACTION. In 1981, after Jimmy Carter had left the White House, John Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council, where he became an effective advocate of neighborhood preservation and government reform. In 1986 he ran for Congress, and John Lewis, whose own parents had been prevented from voting, who had been denied access to the schools and libraries of his hometown, who had been threatened, jailed and beaten for trying to register voters, was elected to the United States House of Representatives.</p> <figure id="attachment_47286" style="width: 3709px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-47286 " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024.jpg"></noscript><img class="size-full wp-image-47286 lazyload" alt="" width="3709" height="2963" data-sizes="(max-width: 3709px) 100vw, 3709px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024.jpg 3709w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024-380x304.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024-760x607.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1966: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and activist John Lewis singing the Civil Rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” as they march in Mississippi in the James Meredith ‘March Against Fear’ — a major 1966 demonstration in the Civil Rights Movement in the South. An estimated 15,000 mostly black marchers entered the capital of Jackson on June 26, making it the largest civil rights march in the history of the state. The march served as a catalyst for continued community organizing and political growth over the following years among African Americans in the state. (Getty)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Since then he has been re-elected repeatedly by overwhelming margins, on one occasion running unopposed. Today, he represents Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District, encompassing the entire city of Atlanta and parts of four surrounding counties. Congressman Lewis sits on the House Budget Committee and House Ways and Means Committee, where he serves on the Subcommittee on Health. He serves as Senior Chief Deputy Democratic Whip, is a member of the Democratic Steering Committee, the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Committee to Support Writers and Journalists. Apart from his service in Congress, he is Co-Chair of the Faith and Politics Institute.</p> <figure id="attachment_20030" style="width: 1661px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20030 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20030 size-full lazyload" alt="Congressman Lewis receives the Golden Plate of the Academy of Achievement from James Earl Jones at the 2004 International Achievement Summit in Chicago. (Academy of Achievement) " width="1661" height="1337" data-sizes="(max-width: 1661px) 100vw, 1661px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR.jpg 1661w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR-380x306.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR-760x612.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">U.S. Congressman John R. Lewis receives the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement from award-winning film actor James Earl Jones at the 2004 International Achievement Summit in Chicago, Illinois.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Congressman Lewis has received numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the Martin Luther King, Jr. Nonviolent Peace Prize, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Award of the National Education Association, and the John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage” award for lifetime achievement. His courage and integrity have won him the admiration of congressional colleagues on both sides of the aisle. Senator John McCain has written a moving tribute to John Lewis in his book <i>Why Courage Matters</i>. Congressman Lewis gives his own account of his experiences in the Civil Rights era in <i>Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement</i>, published in 1998.</p> <figure id="attachment_20037" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20037 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20037 size-full lazyload" alt="In February 2010, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement. (AP Images/Carolyn Kaster)" width="2280" height="1721" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom-380x287.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom-760x574.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">February 2010: President Barack Obama presents the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement, at the White House. (AP/C. Kaster)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">Congressman Lewis began the 2008 presidential campaign as a supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. His decision to switch his support to Senator Barack Obama was considered a major turning point in the campaign. When Lewis appeared at President Obama’s inauguration, he was the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington.</p> <p class="inputtext">In addition to his advocacy of domestic issues, Congressman Lewis has taken a passionate interest in human rights on the international stage. In 2009, he was arrested, with three other U.S. Representatives, outside the Embassy of Sudan, where they were protesting the obstruction of aid to refugees in Darfur.</p> <figure id="attachment_30720" style="width: 2000px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><noscript><img class="wp-image-30720 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1lja8566.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-30720 size-full lazyload" alt="March 8, 2015: President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama and daughters Sasha and Malia wait with former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush prior to the walking across the he Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches, in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)" width="2000" height="1333" data-sizes="(max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1lja8566.jpg 2000w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1lja8566-380x253.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1lja8566-760x507.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1lja8566.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">March 7, 2015: President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, daughters Sasha and Malia, and John Lewis join thousands of Americans at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches, in Selma, Alabama. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">The Congressman has long been an ardent supporter of health insurance reform. In an eerie echo of his past struggles, he was subjected to angry catcalls and abusive language by opponents of the 2010 health care bill as he entered the Capitol for a crucial vote. As in years past, his courage was unwavering, and the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act remains one of the proudest achievements of his legislative career. The following year, in a ceremony at the White House, President Barack Obama awarded him the nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.</p></body></html> <div class="clearfix"> </div> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="profile" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <header class="editorial-article__header"> <figure class="text-xs-center"> <img class="inductee-badge" src="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/themes/aoa/assets/images/inducted-badge@2x.png" alt="Inducted Badge" width="120" height="120"/> <figcaption class="serif-3 text-brand-primary"> Inducted in 2004 </figcaption> </figure> </header> <div class="row"> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <dl class="clearfix m-b-0"> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Career</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> <div><a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.activist">Activist</a></div> <div><a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/#filter=.politician">Politician</a></div> </dd> </div> <div class="col-xs-12 sidebar--chunk p-b-2"> <dt class="serif-7">Date of Birth</dt> <dd class="sans-2"> February 21, 1940 </dd> </div> </dl> </aside> <article class="col-md-8 editorial-article clearfix"> <p class="inputTextFirst">“I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence.”</p> <p class="inputText">By age 23, John Lewis was already recognized as one of the principal leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement, along with Martin Luther King, Jr. The son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he led his first demonstrations while studying theology in Nashville, Tennessee.</p> <p class="inputText">As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he was a leader in many of the most dramatic campaigns of the movement: the lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Rides and the March on Washington. He suffered serious injuries from mob violence and personal physical attacks, and would be arrested more than 40 times, but John Lewis would not be dissuaded from the pursuit of justice. In 1965 he led the historic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers, and John Lewis had his skull fractured, but the subsequent march from Selma to Montgomery led directly to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, finally committing the federal government to the enforcement of voting rights for all Americans.</p> <p class="inputText">Over the following decades, John Lewis led an explosion of minority voter registration that has transformed American politics. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives. For more than 20 years, he has represented the City of Atlanta, Georgia and surrounding counties in Congress, where he remains one of America’s most courageous champions of human rights.</p> </article> </div> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="interview" role="tabpanel"> <section class="clearfix"> <div class="col-md-12 interview-feature-video"> <figure> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/yFLaYgl3PlM?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=3189&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_50_29_10.Still010-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_50_29_10.Still010-760x428.jpg"></div> <div class="video-tag sans-4"> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> <div class="video-tag__text">Watch full interview</div> </div> </div> </figure> </div> <header class="col-md-12 text-xs-center m-b-2"> <i class="icon-icon_bio text-brand-primary"></i> </header> <aside class="col-md-4 sidebar"> <h2 class="serif-3 achiever--biography-subtitle">Presidential Medal of Freedom</h2> <div class="sans-2">Chicago, Illinois</div> <div class="sans-2">June 10, 2004</div> </aside> <article class="editorial-article col-md-8">   <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p class="inputtext"><b>Congressman Lewis, as a student you participated in the lunch counter sit-ins. These were among the first organized acts of civil disobedience protesting segregation. Could you tell us about that?</b></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/WgRf4UdkAO8?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=57&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_49_08_10.Still009-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_49_08_10.Still009-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/preparation/">Preparation</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">I’ll tell you, I grew up overnight. By the fall of 1959 we had what we called “test sit-ins” in Nashville. We went through a period of role playing and social drama, and then it came time for a group of black and white college students to go to downtown Nashville and just sit at a lunch counter, to establish the fact that people were denied service. It was in November and December of 1959. And then from a sit-in started in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February the 1st, 1960, we started sitting in on a regular basis. And it was there that, by sitting down, I think we were really standing up. I saw many of us, and I know in my own case I grew up while I was sitting on a lunch counter stool. I became a different person. I became a different human being.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20039" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20039 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20039 size-full lazyload" alt="Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, center, speaks with attorney Fred D. Gray, left, and the Rev. Robert S. Graetz, right of Abernathy, about the settlement of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1956. Gray, Abernathy and the Montgomery movement had a profound effect on the young John Lewis. (AP Images)" width="2280" height="1851" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033-380x309.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033-760x617.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Rev. Ralph Abernathy speaks with attorney Fred Gray and the Rev. Robert Graetz about the settlement of the bus boycott in 1956. Gray, Abernathy and the Montgomery movement had a profound effect on the young John Lewis.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext"><b>What went through your mind? What was in your head the very first time you sat down at a segregated lunch counter?</b></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/XhIq1vt3Qqg?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=56&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_09_45_20.Still002-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_09_45_20.Still002-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Lewis: Somehow, in some way, I just felt that we were involved in something that was so large, so necessary, so right. It was almost holy. It was something very righteous and something very pure about it. I was sitting there with other young college students. For the most part we were well-dressed, we were orderly, we were peaceful, and we were looking straight ahead, or either we were doing our homework, and people would come up and call us “niggers.” They would come up and spit on us, put lighted cigarettes out in our hair or down our backs, pull us off the lunch counter stool, and we didn’t strike back. At times we would just look straight ahead. I just felt that we had to do what we were doing and that it was necessary.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20045" style="width: 2231px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20045 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20045 size-full lazyload" alt=""Fifty-three years ago today, I was released from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson for using a 'white' restroom" — John Lewis, July 7, 2014." width="2231" height="1454" data-sizes="(max-width: 2231px) 100vw, 2231px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot.jpg 2231w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot-380x248.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot-760x495.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">“Fifty-three years ago today, I was released from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson for using a ‘white’ restroom” — John Lewis, July 7, 2014. On July 7, 1961, 21-year-old John Lewis was released from the Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi after 37 days in prison at a charge of disorderly conduct — refusing to follow segregation law. Lewis was a civil rights leader with the Southern Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, and he and other activists spent the summer of 1961 leading a Freedom Ride to protest segregation in the Deep South. Parchman was an infamous prison and its treatment of the Freedom Riders in 1961 has become legendary. The Governor of Mississippi himself instructed Parchman guards to “break their spirit.”John Lewis has been arrested 45 times during his career as a political activist, most recently during an immigration rights protest in 2013.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Weren’t you ever just afraid?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: As a participant in the movement, as I was sitting in, I came to that point where I lost all sense of fear.</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/YVAwte3zK4E?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=146&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_09_47_00.Still003-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_09_47_00.Still003-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p>I will never forget in late February 1960, one morning we were preparing to sit in, and a very influential citizen of Nashville came to the church where we were gathering and said if we go down on this particular day the officials were going to allow people to beat us, to pull us off the lunch counter stools, and then going to arrest us, and, “Maybe you shouldn’t go. Maybe it’s too dangerous.” And we all said we had to go, and we went down. When I was growing up, my mother and father and family members said, “Don’t get in trouble. Don’t get in the way.” I got in trouble. I got in the way. It was necessary trouble. While we were sitting there and we were being pulled off the lunch counter stools and then beaten, the local officials, police officials, the chief of police and others, came up and placed us all under arrest. I was arrested along with 87 other students. The Nashville sit-ins became the first mass arrest in the sit-in movement, and I was taken to jail. I’ll tell you, I felt so liberated. I felt so free. I felt like I had crossed over. I think I said to myself, “What else can you do to me? You beat me. You harassed me. Now you have placed me under arrest. You put us in jail. What’s left? You can kill us.” But as a group, and I know as one person, we were determined to see the end of segregation and racial discrimination in places of public accommodation. So I lost my sense of fear. You know, no one would like to be beaten. No one would like to go to jail. Jail is not a pleasant place. No one liked to suffer pain, but for the common good we were committed.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>What did your parents think of all this?</strong></p> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/DrMGRx174UU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=55&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_21_45_02.Still005-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_21_45_02.Still005-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Lewis: My mother, my father. My mother, my dear mother, she was so worried. She was so troubled. She didn’t know that I was even involved, because I hadn’t had any discussion until she heard that I was in jail, when the school official called and informed her that I was in jail with several other students. The next day or so I got a letter saying, “Get out of the movement. Get out of that mess. You went to school to get an education. You’re going to get yourself hurt. You’re going to get yourself killed.” And I wrote her back and said, “I think I did the right thing. It was the right thing to do.” Years later she became very, very supportive, especially after the Voting Rights Act was passed and she was allowed to become a registered voter.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20047" style="width: 1864px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20047 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20047 size-full lazyload" alt="Freedom Riders John Lewis and James Zwerg after being attacked and beaten by segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama, May 20, 1961. (© Bettmann/CORBIS) " width="1864" height="1304" data-sizes="(max-width: 1864px) 100vw, 1864px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg.jpg 1864w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg-380x266.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg-760x532.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">1961: Freedom Riders John Lewis and James Zwerg after being beaten by segregationists in Montgomery, AL.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Did your belief in nonviolence ever waiver? Did you ever question the method?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/glaB7Vix4Uc?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=76&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-MasterEdit.00_29_43_18.Still012-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-MasterEdit.00_29_43_18.Still012-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/integrity/">Integrity</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Lewis: As a participant, and even today, I have never ever questioned the method, never questioned this idea, this concept of passive resistance. I believe in nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. I believe that this idea is one of those immutable principles that is non-negotiable if you’re going to create a world community at peace with itself. You have to accept nonviolence as a way of life, as a way of living. I thought I was going to die a few times. On the Freedom Rides in the year 1961, when I was beaten at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, I thought I was going to die. On March 7, 1965, when I was hit in the head with a night stick by a state trooper at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death, but nothing can make me question the philosophy of nonviolence.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><p><strong>Or want to retaliate?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: No, I cannot and will not retaliate. We grew to respect the dignity and the worth of every human being. When we were harassed by Sheriff Clark in Selma or Bull Connor in Birmingham, when I was being beaten by an angry mob in Montgomery, you try to put yourself in the place of the people that are abusing you, and see that person as a human being, and try to do what you can to win that person over, to change that person. In a sense we all were victims, victims of a system.</p> <figure id="attachment_20048" style="width: 2119px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20048 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20048 size-full lazyload" alt="John Lewis on Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965." width="2119" height="3000" data-sizes="(max-width: 2119px) 100vw, 2119px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis.jpg 2119w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis-268x380.jpg 268w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis-537x760.jpg 537w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">John Lewis on Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965. The Edmund Pettus Bridge was the site of the conflict of “Bloody Sunday” on March 7, 1965, when armed policemen attacked civil rights demonstrators with billy clubs and tear gas as they were attempting to march to the Alabama State Capital of Montgomery. The bridge is named after Edmund Winston Pettus, a former Confederate General, Democratic Party U.S. Senator from Alabama and Grand Dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. The bridge was declared a National Historic Landmark in March of 2013.</figcaption></figure><p><strong>Let me ask about March 7, known as “Bloody Sunday.” What was going through your mind when you saw the array of state troopers on horseback, and you and Hosea Williams at the front of that line walked into that?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/PymHa-mP5dQ?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=134&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_44_50_09.Still007-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_44_50_09.Still007-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/courage/">Courage</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Lewis: As we started walking across the Alabama River, across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I really thought that we would be arrested and taken to jail. I was prepared to be arrested, and I was wearing a backpack, and in this backpack I had two books, an apple, an orange, toothbrush and toothpaste. I thought we were going to go to jail. I wanted to have something to read, something to eat, and since I was going to be in jail with my friends, colleagues and neighbors, I wanted to be able to brush my teeth. And we get to the high point, highest point on that bridge. Down below we saw the Alabama state troopers, the Sheriff’s Deputies, members of Sheriff Clark’s posse, and when Major John Claude said, “This is an unlawful march.” I think he said, “I am Major John Claude of the Alabama state troopers. This is an unlawful march. You will not be allowed to continue. I give you three minutes to disperse and return to your church.” And I think Hosea Williams said, “Major, will you give us a moment to pray?” And before we could even get word back, he said, “Troopers advance.” I knew then that we were going to be beaten. And you saw these men putting on their gas masks, and they came towards us beating us with night sticks, pushing us, trampling us with horses, and releasing the tear gas. I became very concerned about the other people in the march, because I thought I was going to die. I just sort of said to myself, “This is it. This is the end of the road for me. I’m going to die right here on this bridge.” And to this day, 39 years later, I don’t know how I made it back across the bridge, through the streets of Selma, back to that little church that we left from, but I do recall being back at that church that Sunday afternoon.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20043" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20043 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20043 size-full lazyload" alt="State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. At center, John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," is widely credited for galvanizing the nation's leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo)" width="1280" height="839" data-sizes="(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday.jpg 1280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday-380x249.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday-760x498.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. At center, John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper.</figcaption></figure><p>It was Brown Chapel AME Church. When we got back, the church was full to capacity. Several hundred people on the outside were trying to get in to protest what had happened. Someone asked me to say something to the audience, and I stood up and said, “I don’t understand it. President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam but cannot send troops to Selma, Alabama to protect people whose only desire is to register to vote.” The next thing I knew I had been admitted to the Good Samaritan hospital in Selma.</p> <p><strong>Was that a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement?</strong></p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/ugXHILQ2DRo?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=82&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-MasterEdit.00_17_08_21.Still011-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-MasterEdit.00_17_08_21.Still011-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext">John Lewis: I think what happened in Selma was a turning point in the Civil Rights Movement and probably was one of the finest hours in the movement. Because of what happened in Selma, I mean people saw the film footage of what happened on television that Sunday night, that Monday morning. There was a sense of righteous indignation. People didn’t like it. The American people didn’t like it. There were demonstrations in almost every major city in America, on almost every major college campus, at the White House, the Department of Justice, at American embassies abroad. I remember Dr. King coming to visit me that Monday morning in the hospital, and he said, “John, don’t worry. We’ll make it from Selma to Montgomery. The Voting Rights Act will be passed.” And he told me that he was issuing a call for religious leaders to come to Selma the next day, and the next day, that Tuesday, March 9, more than a thousand ministers, priests, rabbis and nuns came to Selma and marched across the bridge to the point where we had been beaten two days earlier.</p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20031" style="width: 1813px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20031 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20031 size-full lazyload" alt="Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963: Leaders of the march (from left to right) Mathew Ahmann, Executive Director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; (seated with glasses) Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of the Demonstration Committee; (standing behind the two chairs) Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress; (beside Robinson is) A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the demonstration, veteran labor leader who helped to found the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, American Federation of Labor (AFL), and a former vice president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); (wearing a bow tie and standing beside Prinz is) Joseph Rauh, Jr., a Washington, D.C. attorney and civil rights, peace, and union activist; John Lewis, Chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Floyd McKissick, National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality." width="1813" height="1956" data-sizes="(max-width: 1813px) 100vw, 1813px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056.jpg 1813w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056-352x380.jpg 352w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056-704x760.jpg 704w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963: Leaders of the march Mathew Ahmann, Executive Director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of the Demonstration Committee; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress; A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the demonstration and founder of Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, American Federation of Labor (AFL), and a former vice president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); Joseph Rauh, Jr., a Washington, D.C. attorney and civil rights, and union activist; John Lewis, Chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Floyd McKissick, National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality.</figcaption></figure><p class="inputtext">President Johnson called Governor Wallace to come to the White House to try to get assurance from him that he would be able to protect us if we decided to march again. Wallace could not assure the President. Lyndon Johnson was so moved that he had to do something. The American people were saying, “You must act.” The Congress was saying, “You must do something.” So he went on television, and…</p></body></html> </div>     <div class="achiever__video-block"> <figure class="achiever__interview-video"> <div class="embed-responsive embed-responsive-16by9"> <iframe class="embed-responsive-item embed-responsive--has-thumbnail" width="200" height="150" src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934if_/https://www.youtube.com/embed/Njq9TN52vIU?feature=oembed&autohide=1&hd=1&color=white&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&theme=light&start=0&end=102&version=3" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <div class="embed-responsive__thumbnail ratio-container__image lazyload" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_15_14_06.Still004-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-2004-upscale-1of3.00_15_14_06.Still004-760x428.jpg"></div> <i class="embed-responsive__play icon-icon_play-full text-brand-primary"></i> </div> <figcaption class="achiever__interview-video-terms"> <span>Keys to success —</span> <a class="comma-item" href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/keys-to-success/the-american-dream/">The American Dream</a> </figcaption> </figure>  <div class="achiever__interview-video__copy"> <p class="inputtext"><span style="font-size: 1rem;">On March 15, 1965, Lyndon Johnson made one of the most meaningful speeches any American president had made in modern times on the whole question of civil rights and voting rights. I was with Dr. King as we watched and listened to Lyndon Johnson the night of March 15. He spoke to the nation. He spoke to a general session of the Congress. He started that speech off that night by saying, “I speak tonight for the dignity of man and for the destiny of democracy.” He went on to say, “At times history and fate meet at a single place in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was more than a century ago at Lexington and at Concord. So it was at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.” He condemned the violence in Selma, and he mentioned the fact that one good man, a man of God, was killed. Reverend James Reed, a white minister from Boston, had participated in a march on March 9. And then the night of March 9 he went out to try to get something to eat with two or three other white ministers, and they were jumped and beaten by members of the Klan, and a day or so later he died at a local hospital in Birmingham. President Johnson recognized that, but before he closed that speech and introduced the Voting Rights Act, he said, “We shall overcome.” He said it more than once, “And we </span><i style="font-size: 1rem;">shall</i><span style="font-size: 1rem;"> overcome.” And he became the first president to use the theme song of the Civil Rights Movement in a major speech, and Dr. King was so moved he started crying, and we all cried a little when we heard Lyndon Johnson say, “And we shall overcome.”</span></p> </div> </div>      <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd"> <html><body><figure id="attachment_20042" style="width: 2280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><noscript><img class="wp-image-20042 size-full " src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934im_/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH.jpg"></noscript><img class="wp-image-20042 size-full lazyload" alt="Congressman John Lewis speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, August 27, 2013. (Michael Reynolds)" width="2280" height="1280" data-sizes="(max-width: 2280px) 100vw, 2280px" data-srcset="/web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH.jpg 2280w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH-380x213.jpg 380w, /web/20181007204934im_/http://www.achievement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH-760x427.jpg 760w" data-src="https://web.archive.org/web/20181007204934/http://162.243.3.155/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH.jpg"><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">Congressman John Lewis speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, August 27, 2013. Lewis, who was the youngest speaker at the original march, urged the audience to continue marching on behalf of equality. “Fifty years later, we cannot wait, we cannot be patient,” he said. “We want our jobs and we want our freedom now…we cannot give up. We cannot give out.” (M. Reynolds)</figcaption></figure></body></html> </div>    <aside class="collapse" id="full-interview">    <div class="achiever__interview-copy"> <p><strong>You’ve seen great changes in your lifetime. What was it like growing up in rural Alabama when you were a kid in the 1940s and ’50s?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: It was very hard and very difficult growing up in rural Alabama during the ’40s and the ’50s. I grew up on a farm in a family of ten children, a wonderful mother, wonderful father, wonderful grandparents and great-grandparents. I grew up very poor, but in 1944, when I was four years old — and I do remember when I was four — my father had saved $300, and with the $300 a guy gave him 110 acres of land, and on this land we raised a lot of cotton and corn, peanuts, hogs, cows and chickens. It was very hard, hard work. I saw my mother and my father, my grandparents and great-grandparents, and later as children we all had to work from sun up to sundown, and some years we didn’t make enough or produce enough to live on.</p> <p>But I also saw segregation. I saw racial discrimination as a young child. I saw those signs that said “White Men, Colored Men, White Women, Colored Women.” If you go to the little town of Troy, about 50 miles south of Montgomery on a Saturday, you go to a theater, and all of the little white children went downstairs and all of the black children, we all had to go upstairs to the balcony. I remember as a young child with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins going down to the public library trying to get library cards, trying to check some books out, and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for “coloreds.” But I also recall in 1954, when I was 14 years old and in ninth grade, when the Supreme Court decision came down. I thought for the first time that I would be attending a desegregated school, a better school. I wouldn’t have the hand-me-down books, wouldn’t be traveling in a broken down school bus. The school wouldn’t be overcrowded and poorly staffed, but it didn’t happen for me. I would ask my mother and ask my father, “Why segregation? Why racial discrimination?” And they would say, “That’s the way it is. That’s the way it is. Don’t get in trouble. Don’t get in the way.”</p> <p>About a year and a half later, I heard about Rosa Parks, and I heard Martin Luther King, Jr.’s voice on an old radio, and the words of Dr. King and the action of Rosa Parks inspired me. I followed the drama of the Montgomery bus boycott. We were too poor to have a subscription to the local newspaper — it was called <em>The Montgomery Advertiser</em> — so my grandfather had a subscription, and when he would finish reading his paper we would get his paper and read about what was going on in Montgomery and listen to the radio. We didn’t have a television then. And Dr. King was so inspiring, so inspiring. I wanted to find a way to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement and become part of it. I would hear him speak. I just felt that he was speaking to me. Like he was saying, “John Lewis, you can do it. You can get involved. You must get involved.” And when I got the chance, I got involved.</p> <p><strong>What kind of student were you as a kid?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I was not the brightest student. I studied. I worked hard, but from time to time my mother and father, especially my father, wanted us to stay out of school and work in the field, and I knew I needed to get an education. I wanted to get an education. So sometimes when my father would suggest that we’d have to stay home and plot a mule, help gather the crops, I would get up early in the morning, get dressed, and get my book bag and hide under the front porch, and when I heard the school bus coming up the hill, I would run out and get on that school bus and go off to school. And sometimes my father would say, “You know, I told you to stay home, but you went off to school.” And we would talk, but he knew that I saw the value of education and I wanted to get an education. I didn’t like working out in the hot sun picking cotton, pulling corn, gathering peanuts, and I wanted to get an education because I knew I needed it, and I knew it would be better for me in the days and years to come.</p> <p><strong>What made you aware of that? There must have been thousands of other young black men and women who did not see that need for getting out of the fields, for getting an education.</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I had a wonderful teacher. One of my teachers was wonderful. She would tell us over and over again, “Get an education. Get something that no one will be able to take from you. Get an education. You won’t have to work like that in the field making starvation wages. Get an education.” And she would say, “Read, my child. Read. Read everything.” And at our home we had very few books, so at school there were more books. There were magazines, there were newspapers, and I tried to read everything.</p> <p><strong>What did you like to read as a kid? What books did you like?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: Well, I was very moved by stories, the history, knowing what happened, how it happened. As a child I would ask a lot of questions of my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, my aunts, the grand-aunts, and they accused me of being nosy, but I was inquisitive. I was eavesdropping a great deal as a child. When my mother’s aunt, my grand-aunt would come and visit us, I would go in another room and I would listen. I would listen, and the moment they left the house I would say, “What was that all about? What did y’all mean? What did that word mean? What was it all about?” And sometimes my mother and my grand-aunt, and sometimes my grand-uncles, they would walk the road, down a long road to see them off to their home, and I would walk with them, and I would ask questions on the way back and we had these discussions. And when I was growing up, I was somewhat shy but I grew out of it, because I wanted to know. I had to – if you want to know something you have to ask.</p> <p><strong>What was hardest for you growing up?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I had a restless spirit. I knew segregation was wrong. I saw it. We were bused long distances over unpaved roads during the spring, and it would rain sometimes, the school bus would break down, get in a ditch, and we would get to school late and return home late. We were bussed past white schools and I didn’t like it.</p> <p>When I was 11 years old in 1951, one summer, one of my uncles, my mother’s younger brothers, invited me to go to Buffalo for the summer with some of my first cousins and an aunt. And I remember so well my mother spending two or three evenings cooking pies and cakes, frying chicken, wrapping it in cellophane because we didn’t have aluminum foil then, and she would put it in brown paper bags or shoe boxes for us to have some place for something to eat, because there was not any place for us to stop to get something to eat as we drove through Alabama, or through Tennessee, or through Kentucky on our way to Buffalo. And when I got to Buffalo I saw a different world. I saw black and white people living together, working together, going to school together, shopping together, going to the theater together. And so when I came back to Alabama after being there for the summer, I wanted to find a way to get out of Alabama. And I had this sort of crazy idea with some of my first cousins. This wouldn’t be environmentally correct, but we were going to saw down a very large pine tree, and somehow we had this idea that we’re going to take the large part of the pine tree and make wheels, and we were going to make a wooden bus, and we were going to roll out of Alabama.</p> <p><strong>Did you have role models? Who inspired you as a child? Did you have heroes?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: Well, growing up in all black schools, during one week in February we had what we called Negro History Week, and we had to make a scrapbook. So we had to go out and find pictures of outstanding African Americans — then we said Negroes or blacks. And so I would locate a photograph of Frederick Douglas; Booker T. Washington, the educator; George Washington Carver, the scientist; Ralph Bunche, the diplomat; Jackie Robinson, the baseball player; Joe Louis, the boxer. He was a native of Alabama, and Carver and Booker T. Washington had been located only about 45 miles from where I grew up at Tuskegee. So reading about these men sort of inspired me to see that people of color made a contribution. But I think my mother had a tremendous impact because she knew we needed to get an education, and she would say, “Study, get an education,” but at the same time she was torn. She knew we had to work to help around the house and help gather the crops. And my father and my mother did their best, and when I look back on those early years, I don’t know how they made it. I don’t know how we survived.</p> <p><strong>What did you want to be when you grew up?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: When I was growing up I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach. I’ll tell you this little story. When I was growing up, it was my responsibility to care for the chickens. I fell in love with raising chickens. It became my obligation. It became my mission. It became my duty, and I raised chickens like no one else could raise chickens. I became very good at it. I was only seven-and-a-half, eight, nine years old, but I did it until I left home at the age of 17 in 1957 to go off to college.</p> <p>I had to take the fresh eggs, mark them with a pencil, place them under the sitting hen and wait for three long weeks for the little chicks to hatch. And you may ask, “Why did you mark the fresh egg with a pencil before you placed them under the sitting hen?” Well, from time to time another hen would get on that same nest, and there would be some more fresh eggs, and you had to be able to tell the fresh eggs from the eggs that were already under the sitting hen. When these little chicks were hatched, I would fool the sitting hen, I would cheat on the sitting hen. I would take these little chicks and give them to another hen. I’d put them in a box with a lantern, raise them on their own, and get some more fresh eggs, mark them with a pencil, place them under the sitting hen, and encouraging the sitting hen to stay on the nest for another three weeks. I kept on cheating on the sitting hen and fooling the sitting hen.</p> <p>We used to get the Sears Roebuck Catalog. This big, thick book. Some people called it the Ordering Book. Some people called it the Wish Book. “I wish I had this, I wish I had that.” And I would look at this catalogue and just wish that I had an incubator or a hatcher so that I wouldn’t have to cheat on the sitting hen. The most inexpensive hatcher, I think, was $18.98 and I just kept on cheating on these sitting hens. We used to order everything from Sears Roebuck. Our clothing, our farm supply, our chicken wire, everything. And one of my uncles one Christmas had Santa Claus bring me a Bible.</p> <p>I learned to read the Bible, and then I started speaking and preaching and playing church with my brothers and sisters and first cousins. We would gather all of our chickens in the chicken house or in the chicken yard, and the chickens — along with my brothers and sisters and first cousins — would make up the congregation, and I would start speaking or preaching. And I say now, when I look back on it, some of these chickens would bow their heads. Some of these chickens would shake their heads. They never quite said “Amen” but they tended to listen to me much better than some of my colleagues listen to me today in the Congress, and some of those chickens were a little more productive. At least they produced eggs.</p> <p><strong>Were you popular in school?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I was very popular as a student, because I was very quiet, but on certain occasions when they had programs they would always call on me. Even in middle school and in high school, they referred to me as “Preacher” because for the most part I would wear a tie to school, even when I had on coveralls or jeans. My mother used to say, “You may have only one pair of slacks, and maybe only one shirt, but it must be clean.” So we would wash our clothes in the evening and set them to the fireplace to get dry, iron it late that night or early the next morning, and wear them the next day.</p> <p><strong>What were your favorite subjects at school?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: History. I like to know what happened, how it happened. Literature. I was not good in math. I didn’t like science. Literature and history.</p> <p><strong>Do you remember hearing about it when Rosa Parks said she wasn’t going to give up her seat on the bus?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: It was on December the 1, 1955, when Rosa Parks said, “No, I’m not going to get up.” It changed my life. When Rosa Parks said, “No,” it changed my life forever, and I’ve never been the same since. I wanted somehow — in some way — to make it to Montgomery. I just wanted to be a part of it. It created a great sense of pride. I felt things were about to change. I knew it was very dangerous because I read about it, I heard about the bombings of the churches, the homes, people being arrested. I had witnessed through news accounts the lynching of Emmett Till. This young teenager from Chicago — visiting relatives in Mississippi, going to the store — was accused of whistling or saying something to a white woman, and then later that night, someone coming and grabbing him out of his uncle’s house, out of bed, taking him, beating him and throwing him in the river. That all had an impact on me.</p> <p><strong>When you graduated from high school and went to college, what were your intentions? What were you going to do?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: When I left high school, I wanted to go off to be a minister. I wanted to study religion. I wanted to study philosophy. I applied to go to Troy State College, ten miles from my home. An all-white school. I submitted an application, my high school transcript. I never heard a word from the school. Not one word. So I wrote a letter to Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King wrote me back and sent me a round trip Greyhound bus ticket and invited me to come to Montgomery. I told him I wanted to attend Troy State College. It is now known as Troy University. In the meantime, I had applied to go to a little school called American Baptist College because at this college you could work your way through school, and I got accepted. I will never forget it as long as I live.</p> <p>In September 1957, an uncle of mine gave me a $100 bill, more money than I ever had. He gave me a footlocker, one of these upright trunks that had drawers. You can pull it together, and it had the drapers where you can hang your clothes. So I put everything in that footlocker that I owned except those chickens, and went off to school in September 1957.</p> <p>When I arrived at this little school, American Baptist, after being there for two weeks, I told one of my teachers that I had been in contact with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And this teacher was a friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. They had both attended the same school. He was a minister also. He informed Dr. King that I was in school in Nashville. Martin Luther King, Jr. got back in touch and suggested when I was home for spring break to come and see him. In March of 1958 — by this time I’m 18 years old — my father drove me to the Greyhound bus station on a Saturday morning. I boarded a bus and traveled the 50 miles from Troy to Montgomery. I arrived at the Greyhound bus station. A young black lawyer — I had never seen a lawyer before — by the name of Fred Gray, who had been the lawyer for Rosa Parks, for Dr. King, and the Montgomery movement, met me at the Greyhound bus station and drove me to the First Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery, pastored by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, who was a colleague of Dr. King in the Montgomery movement. And he ushered me into the office of the church. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. I was about to meet Martin Luther King, Jr. And I saw Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ralph Abernathy standing behind a desk, and Dr. King said, “Are you the boy from Troy? Are you John Lewis?” I spoke up and said, “Dr. King, I am John Robert Lewis.” I gave my whole name. And that was the beginning of my relationship with Martin Luther King, Jr. I studied in Nashville at American Baptist for four years, and then I went on to Fisk for another two years.</p> <p><strong>In addition to Martin Luther King, what other thinkers or philosophers, what other people have affected your thinking and inspired you?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: In addition to Martin Luther King, Jr., there was a young Methodist student at seminary. A young man by the name of Jim Lawson, James Lawson. He was part of something called the Methodist Student Movement. He was also active in an organization called A Fellowship for Reconciliation. He started conducting these nonviolence workshops, and I started attending these workshops. I was one of the first students to attend, and he started talking about the great religions of the world, certain elements that ran through all of the great religions of the world. And he started talking about nonviolence and passive resistance, Thoreau and civil disobedience, what Gandhi attempted to do in India, what they attempted to do in South Africa, what they accomplished in India. And he talked about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the nonviolent effort in Montgomery. And for an entire school year every Tuesday night at 6:30 p.m. a group of us — students — would go and study with this young guy studying the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence. We had what we called “role playing,” “social drama.” Black and white college students, and some high school students. And I became imbued with this idea of what we called the “Beloved Community,” a community at peace with itself — that if you want to create the Beloved Community, a good society or a truly interracial democracy, if that is the goal, if that is the end, then the way, the means, must be one of peace and one of love, one of nonviolence. He taught us that means and end are inseparable.</p> <p><strong>At a remarkably young age you assumed a position of leadership. What are the qualities required of leadership? What have you learned about that?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: First, a leader should listen and be prepared to lead. Leaders tend to emerge. We didn’t just one day go out and say, “We’re going to sit in.” We didn’t go out one day and say, “We’re going to march or we’re going to go on a Freedom Ride. We studied. We prepared ourselves and we were ready. A leader must get out front, not just on the big issues but the little issues also, and must become an embodiment of ideas and try to build consensus. A leader must believe in him or herself in order to get others to believe in them and to be prepared to follow them. It’s hard and difficult to tell other people to grow, to go someplace where you haven’t been.</p> <p><strong>Did you ever fear failure?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I never thought that we would fail or that I would fail. I knew from time to time we may make some blunders. We may make some mistakes, but we were not going to fail. I think part of leadership is you must be hopeful. You must be optimistic. You must have this idea that we’re not — that I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to give in. I’m not going to give out that I’m going to hang in there. I’m going to keep the faith. I’m going to keep pushing. I’m going to keep pulling. People accuse me from time to time of being too hopeful, too optimistic, but I think being hopeful, being optimistic is part of being a leader, that in a sense you know where you’re going. I know maybe it won’t happen in my lifetime, but I know somehow in some way we’re going to create the Beloved Community, that we’re going to create a national community, a world community that is at peace. And as you pass this way, as you travel life’s journey, you must do what you can. You must be part of an investment. You must be part of a down payment on the building of that Beloved Community. You must be part of an installment plan. You have to give your part. You have to give your piece.</p> <p><strong>You didn’t exactly find a career or a calling. It found you. You couldn’t have planned any of this.</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I didn’t. I didn’t have a blueprint. I didn’t have a road map. Circumstances, the climate, the environment just pulled me. I talk from time to time about what I call the “spirit of history.” Sometimes you have to let the spirit of history use you, and I think I allowed myself to be used by the spirit of history if you want to call it that. I allowed myself to get in the way.</p> <p><strong>Have you had any regrets over the years?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I don’t have any significant regrets except that I wish I had spent more time with individuals like Martin Luther King, Jr. Maybe I would have asked him a few more questions. I didn’t have any idea that he would be taken from us. I wish I had got to know Bobby Kennedy much better. These two young people inspired me.</p> <p>I loved Martin Luther King, Jr. He was my hero. He was a wonderful friend. I remember during the last leg of the march from Selma to Montgomery, we were walking and I think it started raining. He had a little cap on his head, and he took the cap off and he put it on my head and he said, “John, you’ve been hurt. You need to protect your head. You need to wear this cap.” I just thought it was a wonderful something on his part, but he was always so caring and so sharing. And Robert Kennedy, I’ll tell you, I saw there was something about him that was so dear. When Dr. King was assassinated, I said to myself — I had what I call an executive session with myself. I said, “We still have Robert Kennedy.” And then two months later Robert Kennedy was taken. The assassination of these two young men was the most difficult time in my life really. The saddest. They were friends. They were people that I loved and admired. I was with Robert Kennedy when we heard that Dr. King had been shot. I was in Indianapolis, Indiana campaigning with him, and I was in his room at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel and spoke to him about 15 minutes before he went down to make his victory statement. Even today I feel like I must continue to do what I can. And I often wonder, “If Dr. King were here, and Robert Kennedy were, what would they be doing?” So someone must continue to speak up and speak out, because they’re not here.</p> <p><strong>You put your life and your beliefs on the line. You had to act as an outsider in this society. Since then you’ve been elected to the Atlanta City Council, you’ve been elected to the Congress of the United States. You’ve gone from being an outsider to an insider. How does that affect your role, your thinking?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: Being an elected official, whether on the Atlanta City Council or as a member of Congress, I don’t think it had much of an impact on me. I don’t think I’ve changed that much. I still talk about the Beloved Community. I still talk about the one America, one family, one house. The American house, the world house, we all live in the same house. Sometimes I feel like I’ve passed this way once before. I think the movement and what I went through during the height of the Civil Rights Movement prepared me to stand up and fight for what I think is right and fair and just, but it also prepared me to be patient in a sense, to take the long hard look. That the struggle to redeem the soul of America, to create the Beloved Community, or to bring about change, is not a struggle that lasts for one day or one month or one year, but is a struggle of a lifetime. So if you’re trying to get a piece of legislation through the Atlanta City Council, or try to get a piece of legislation through the Congress, or try to change your fellow members to move to a certain — you just keep working at it. You don’t give up. You hang in there. And that’s what we did during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, and that’s what we continue to do today, for the fight is not just for today, but it’s for tomorrow and the next year and years to come.</p> <p><strong>If a member of this generation, one of these young men or women came to you, and asked you for advice, what would you say to them?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: If a young person of this generation came to me and said, “What should I do? What should I be doing?” I would say, “Find a way to follow the dictates of your conscience. Find your own inner compass and follow it. Do what is right. Be kind. Don’t hate. Love is a better way. Don’t become cynical. Forget about your own circumstances and find a way to get involved in the circumstances of others. Try to do something to serve the common good.”</p> <p><strong>What books would you tell them to read?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: I would say, “Read the literature of the Civil Rights Movement. Read the literature. Read <em>Parting the Waters</em> by Taylor Branch. Read David Halberstam’s book, <em>The Children</em>.” There are several other books — I would tell them to read my little book, <em>Walking with the Wind</em>, which is a memoir of the Movement — but also watch the videos. Watch <em>Eyes on the Prize</em>. There’s a lot of film footage on the Movement. Another generation of young people, just ordinary young people, got out there and they brought about a nonviolent revolution in America. I would say to them, “Read the literature. Study the literature of the Movement and don’t be afraid.”</p> <p><strong>Are there still battles to be won?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: 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. We have a right to know what is in the food we eat, what is in the water we drink, what is in the air we breathe. We need to find a way to make this world a little more peaceful. Maybe this generation of young people can get humankind to come to another level, to move to a higher level where we can lay down the tools and instruments of violence and war and stop the madness. Maybe in our own country we can do something about providing health care for all of our citizens, that some of the resources that we use to build bombs and missiles and guns can be used for education, for health care, taking care of the elderly, our children, the disabled, the homeless, and find a cure for some of the ills and diseases that impact human beings, not just here in America but around the world.</p> <p><strong>As a kid being turned away from the public library in Troy, Alabama, could you ever have imagined the life you’ve lived, and the level of achievement that you have realized?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: If someone had told me when I was growing up outside of Troy, Alabama, that one day I’d be on the Atlanta City Council, elected by the good citizens of Atlanta, or that one day I would be in the House of Representatives, elected by the good people of Georgia, I would say, “You’re crazy. You’re out of your mind. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I feel more than lucky. I feel very blessed.</p> <p>When I go back to Alabama and go back to some of these places, go back to Nashville or even in Atlanta, pass by places that years ago I was arrested for sitting there, and now you go back and people invite you to come by and I go back to this little drug store in the little town of Troy! Years ago, when I was growing up, we had to go in and get a soda and bring it outside to drink it, and now I go back and the owner invites me to come in and have something to drink or eat with him. It’s amazing. Troy State University, for an example, after I got elected to the Congress, the local high school and the Mayor and the business people had John Lewis Day there. Troy State led the parade through the little town. The chancellor, who was a close friend of Governor Wallace, came up to me and said, “We understand you wanted to attend Troy State years ago. We would love for you to come back and visit, and we’ll give you an honorary degree.” So a few years ago they gave me an honorary degree from Troy State. So when I go there and speak, I tell the students I got my education from Troy State the easy way.</p> <p><strong>Did you ever get a library card from the public library in Troy?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: On July 5, 1998, I went back to the Pike County Public Library in Troy, Alabama, for a book signing of my book, <em>Walking with the Wind</em>, and hundreds of black and white citizens showed up. It was almost like a family reunion. The land that my father and mother lived on, my grandfather lived on, my great-grandfather lived on, the people that owned the land, their offspring came to the book signing. That evening they had a lot of food. They had a little program and they gave me a library card. It took me from 1956 to 1998 to get it, but they gave it to me, and I cherish this library card. I have it in a drawer at my house in Washington.</p> <p><strong>What do you think were the greatest obstacles you had to overcome to achieve what you’ve achieved?</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: 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. When I would get arrested from time to time and thrown in jail one day, and I’d get out, I’d go right back the next day. That’s how I got arrested 40 times. There were people who didn’t want me to march all the way from Selma to Montgomery because I had been hurt, but two weeks after Bloody Sunday I was back on the line, marching all the way. They didn’t want me to continue the Freedom Ride from Montgomery to Jackson, Mississippi, because I had been hurt, because I had a patch on my head but I kept going. You have to be determined. You have to feel that somehow in some way you can make it, that you will survive, that it’s all going to work out.</p> <p><strong>Thank you very much.</strong></p> <p>John Lewis: Thank you, sir.</p> <p><strong>We truly appreciate it.</strong></p> </div>  </aside>  <div class="read-more__toggle collapsed" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#full-interview"><a href="#" class="sans-4 btn">Read full interview</a></div> </article> </section> </div> <div class="tab-pane fade" id="gallery" role="tabpanel"> <section class="isotope-wrapper">  <header class="toolbar toolbar--gallery bg-white clearfix"> <div class="col-md-6"> <div class="serif-4">Congressman John R. Lewis Gallery</div> </div> <div class="col-md-6 text-md-right isotope-toolbar"> <ul class="list-unstyled list-inline m-b-0 text-brand-primary sans-4"> <li class="list-inline-item" data-filter=".photo"><i class="icon-icon_camera"></i>36 photos</li> </ul> </div> </header> <div class="isotope-gallery isotope-box single-achiever__gallery clearfix"> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.4312617702448" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-march.jpg" data-image-caption="Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King on the five-day march to Montgomery, Alabama, March 25, 1965. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="Martin Luther King Leading a March" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-march-265x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/wordpress-march-531x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_clinton_academy_1069.jpg" data-image-caption="Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman John Lewis greet President Clinton at the International Achievement Summit. (© Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="wordpress_clinton_academy_1069" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_clinton_academy_1069-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/wordpress_clinton_academy_1069-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="Congressmen John Dingell, Roy Blunt and John R. Lewis address student delegates in the Mike Mansfield Room." data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - Congressmen John Dingell, Roy Blunt and John R. Lewis address student delegates in the Mike Mansfield Room.">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Reynolds_0354_wordpress.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressmen John Dingell, Roy Blunt and John R. Lewis address student delegates in the Mike Mansfield Room. (© Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="Reynolds_0354_wordpress" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Reynolds_0354_wordpress-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Reynolds_0354_wordpress-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.74736842105263" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003.jpg" data-image-caption="Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. after their victory in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. (© UPI/Bettman)" data-image-copyright="par0-003" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003-380x284.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/par0-003-760x568.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.49078947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/12328_2006_001_pr.jpg" data-image-caption=""Two Minute Warning," confrontation between Selma police and marchers, March 7, 1965. (Spider Martin)" data-image-copyright="12328_2006_001_pr" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/12328_2006_001_pr-380x187.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/12328_2006_001_pr-760x373.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.76710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/140707-john-lewis-jms-2120_0e4adb51eff4d451d7ed3ec255567079.jpg" data-image-caption=""Fifty-three years ago today, I was released from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson for using a 'white' restroom" — John Lewis, July 7, 2014." data-image-copyright="140707-john-lewis-jms-2120_0e4adb51eff4d451d7ed3ec255567079" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/140707-john-lewis-jms-2120_0e4adb51eff4d451d7ed3ec255567079-380x292.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/140707-john-lewis-jms-2120_0e4adb51eff4d451d7ed3ec255567079-760x583.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66973684210526" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a.jpg" data-image-caption="President Lyndon B. Johnson meeting with civil rights activists, including John Lewis and James Farmer, August 8, 1965." data-image-copyright="a1031-21a" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a-380x254.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/a1031-21a-760x509.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623.jpg" data-image-caption="Civil rights leaders, including John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr., hold a news conference in Montgomery, Alabama and announce that the Freedom Rides will continue, May 23, 1961." data-image-copyright="AP_john_lewis_as_160623" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP_john_lewis_as_160623-760x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP434342558250.jpg" data-image-caption="President Barack Obama listens to Congressman John Lewis as he speaks about "Bloody Sunday," as they and the First Family, civil rights leaders, and members of Congress, walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the 50th anniversary of the landmark event of the Civil Rights Movement. From left are Sasha Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Lewis, President Obama, Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was beaten during "Bloody Sunday," and Adelaide Sanford, also in a wheelchair, March 7, 2015. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)" data-image-copyright="Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Sasha Obama, Marian Robinson, Amelia Boynton Robinson, Adelaide Sanford" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP434342558250-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP434342558250-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.62105263157895" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551.jpg" data-image-caption="State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. At foreground right is John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," is widely credited for galvanizing the nation's leaders and ultimately yielding passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo/File)" data-image-copyright="John Lewis" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551-380x236.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/AP636325930551-760x472.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66447368421053" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0067_JFR.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman Lewis addresses the Academy of Achievement in Chicago, June 2004. (Academy of Achievement)" data-image-copyright="chicago_0067_JFR" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0067_JFR-380x252.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0067_JFR-760x505.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.80526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman Lewis receives the Golden Plate of the Academy of Achievement from James Earl Jones at the 2004 International Achievement Summit in Chicago. (Academy of Achievement) " data-image-copyright="chicago_0075_JFR" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR-380x306.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/chicago_0075_JFR-760x612.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.0795454545455" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056.jpg" data-image-caption="Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., 1963: Leaders of the march (from left to right) Mathew Ahmann, Executive Director of the National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice; (seated with glasses) Cleveland Robinson, Chairman of the Demonstration Committee; (standing behind the two chairs) Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress; (beside Robinson is) A. Philip Randolph, organizer of the demonstration, veteran labor leader who helped to found the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, American Federation of Labor (AFL), and a former vice president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); (wearing a bow tie and standing beside Prinz is) Joseph Rauh, Jr., a Washington, D.C. attorney and civil rights, peace, and union activist; John Lewis, Chairman, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and Floyd McKissick, National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality." data-image-copyright="Portrait" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056-352x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Civil_Rights_March_on_Washington_D.C._Leaders_of_the_march_-_NARA_-_542056-704x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/congress-guns-jpeg-5780f-1.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman John Lewis, flanked by House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland, left, and Congressman Paul Tonko of New York, participate in a news conference on gun legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)" data-image-copyright="Paul Tonko, John Lewis, Steny Hoyer" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/congress-guns-jpeg-5780f-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/congress-guns-jpeg-5780f-1-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.73421052631579" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724.jpg" data-image-caption="In 1965, John Lewis (far right) with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (center) leads a march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to protest the denial of voting rights to African Americans. (© Steve Schapiro/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Corbis 42-18151724" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724-380x279.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-18151724-760x558.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.2603648424544" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-24300237.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman John Lewis from Georgia waits for President Barack Obama to deliver his first State of the Union address to congress in Washington, DC on January 27, 2010. (© Ron Sachs/Corbis)" data-image-copyright="Corbis 42-24300237" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-24300237-302x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Corbis-42-24300237-603x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.5049504950495" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/John_Lewis_1964-04-16.jpg" data-image-caption="John Lewis, American civil rights activist and (future) member of the House of Representatives, at a meeting of the American Society of Newspapers, April 16, 1964." data-image-copyright="John_Lewis_1964-04-16" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/John_Lewis_1964-04-16-253x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/John_Lewis_1964-04-16-505x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.71578947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/john-lewis-bridge.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman John Lewis stands on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on February 14, 2015. He was beaten by police on the bridge on "Bloody Sunday" on March 7, 1965, during an attempted march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery. (Bill Clark)" data-image-copyright="Selma Bloody Sunday 50th Anniversary" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/john-lewis-bridge-380x272.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/john-lewis-bridge-760x544.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom.jpg" data-image-caption="In February 2010, President Barack Obama presented the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to Representative John Lewis of Georgia, a hero of the Civil Rights Movement. (AP Images/Carolyn Kaster)" data-image-copyright="Lewis AP110215160943 Meddal of Freedom" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom-380x287.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-AP110215160943-Meddal-of-Freedom-760x574.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.75263157894737" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-AP-AP061023042403.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman John R. Lewis, 2006. (AP Images) " data-image-copyright="John Lewis" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-AP-AP061023042403-380x286.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis-John-AP-AP061023042403-760x572.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.81184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033.jpg" data-image-caption="Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, center, speaks with attorney Fred D. Gray, left, and the Rev. Robert S. Graetz, right of Abernathy, about the settlement of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott in 1956. Gray, Abernathy and the Montgomery movement had a profound effect on the young John Lewis. (AP Images)" data-image-copyright="Lewis,_John_AP_560221033" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033-380x309.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560221033-760x617.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.77368421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560223040.jpg" data-image-caption="The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right, and Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, center, being booked by Lt. D.H. Lackey of the Montgomery, Alabama police in February 1956. The civil rights leaders had been indicted by a Grand Jury for their roles in the Montgomery bus boycott. King and Abnernathy's homes were firebombed during the boycott. The Supreme Court later struck down the segregation of Montgomery's bus system and charges against King and Abernathy were dropped. (AP Images/Gene Herrick)" data-image-copyright="Lewis_John_AP_560223040" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560223040-380x294.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Lewis_John_AP_560223040-760x588.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.49078947368421" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-2-minute-warning.jpg" data-image-caption=""Two Minute Warning," confrontation between Selma police and marchers, March 7, 1965. (Spider Martin)" data-image-copyright="lewis-2-minute-warning" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-2-minute-warning-380x187.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-2-minute-warning-760x373.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56184210526316" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH.jpg" data-image-caption="Congressman John Lewis speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during activities to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, August 27, 2013. (Michael Reynolds)" data-image-copyright="10731441_h24015161" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH-380x213.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-50TH-760x427.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65526315789474" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday.jpg" data-image-caption="State troopers use clubs against participants of a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. At center, John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, is beaten by a state trooper. The day, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," is widely credited for galvanizing the nation's leaders and ultimately yielded passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (AP Photo)" data-image-copyright="lewis-bloodysunday" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday-380x249.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-bloodysunday-760x498.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65657894736842" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/LEWIS-KING-KENNEDY.jpg" data-image-caption="This picture was taken after the March on Washington in 1963. Third from left is Whitney Young, then Martin Luther King Jr., and standing behind King is John Lewis. Standing to the right of President John F. Kennedy is the legendary A. Philip Randolph, and to the furthest right of the photograph is Roy Wilkins of the NAACP." data-image-copyright="LEWIS-KING-KENNEDY" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/LEWIS-KING-KENNEDY-380x250.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/LEWIS-KING-KENNEDY-760x499.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.65131578947368" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot.jpg" data-image-caption=""Fifty-three years ago today, I was released from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson for using a 'white' restroom" — John Lewis, July 7, 2014." data-image-copyright="lewis-mugshot" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot-380x248.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-mugshot-760x495.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium.jpg" data-image-caption="John Lewis, age 23, Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, speaks at the Lincoln Memorial during the historic March on Washington, August 28, 1963. (© Bettmann/CORBIS)" data-image-copyright="lewis-podium" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-podium-760x428.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.7" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg.jpg" data-image-caption="Freedom Riders John Lewis and James Zwerg after being attacked and beaten by segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama, May 20, 1961. (© Bettmann/CORBIS) " data-image-copyright="lewis-zwerg" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg-380x266.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-zwerg-760x532.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1.415270018622" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis.jpg" data-image-caption="John Lewis on Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965." data-image-copyright="John Lewis on Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965." data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis-268x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/selma_march_lewis-537x760.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="1" title="John Lewis" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - John Lewis">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis_760_ac.jpg" data-image-caption="John Lewis" data-image-copyright="lewis_760_ac" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis_760_ac-380x380.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/04/lewis_760_ac.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.56315789473684" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/russell-angelou-obama-moh-ceremony.jpg" data-image-caption="President Barack Obama addresses the audience before presenting the Medal of Freedom during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, February 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)" data-image-copyright="russell-angelou-obama-moh-ceremony" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/russell-angelou-obama-moh-ceremony-380x214.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/russell-angelou-obama-moh-ceremony-760x428.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-2.jpg" data-image-caption="President Barack Obama awards the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Congressman John Lewis in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House February 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)" data-image-copyright="lewis-moh-2" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-2-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-2-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.66710526315789" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-1.jpg" data-image-caption="President Barack Obama awards the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom to Congressman John Lewis in a ceremony in the East Room of the White House February 15, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)" data-image-copyright="lewis-moh-1" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-1-380x253.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lewis-moh-1-760x507.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.79868421052632" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024.jpg" data-image-caption="1966: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights Activist and U.S. Congressman John Lewis in light raincoat singing “We Shall Overcome” as they marched in Mississippi on the James Meredith March Against Fear in Mississippi. (Photo by Harry Benson/Contour by Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis, Harry Benson, 1966" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024-380x304.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-1966-GettyImages-638927024-760x607.jpg"></div>  </figure> <figure class="isotope-item ratio-container--gallery photo" data-category="photo" data-ratio="0.675" title="" data-gtm-category="photo" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Achiever - ">   <div class="lazyload ratio-container__image" data-toggle="modal" data-target="#imageModal" data-image-src="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424.jpg" data-image-caption="March 25, 1965: American religious and Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) speaks from a pulpit in front of the Montgomery State Capitol building at the conclusion of the Selma to Montgomery March, Montgomery, Alabama. He delivered the speech generally referred to as 'How Long, Not Long' (or 'Our God Is Marching On!'). Among those pictured are American author James Baldwin (1924 - 1987) (seated bottom left), activist Bayard Rustin (1912 - 1987) (with cigarette in his mouth), Bernard Lee (in V-neck sweater and glasses) and John Lewis (arms crossed), both of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and between them, union leader A Philip Randolph (1889 - 1979), and King's wife, activist Coretta Scott King (1927 - 2006) (in sunglasses, behind microphones). The pulpit, from the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, was the one from which King had preached during his tenure at the Montgomery church. (Photo by Steve Schapiro/Corbis via Getty Images)" data-image-copyright="Martin Luther King Jr At Montgomery State Capitol" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424-380x257.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/09/wp-March-25-1965-GettyImages-961489424-760x513.jpg"></div>  </figure>    </div> </section> </div> </div> <div class="container"> <footer class="editorial-article__footer col-md-8 col-md-offset-4"> <div class="editorial-article__next-link sans-3"> <a href="#"><strong>What's next:</strong> <span class="editorial-article__next-link-title">profile</span></a> </div> <ul class="social list-unstyled list-inline ssk-group m-b-0"> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-facebook" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Facebook"><i class="icon-icon_facebook-circle"></i></a></li> <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-twitter" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever on Twitter"><i class="icon-icon_twitter-circle"></i></a></li>  <li class="list-inline-item"><a href="" class="ssk ssk-email" data-gtm-category="social" data-gtm-action="click" data-gtm-label="Shared Achiever via Email"><i class="icon-icon_email-circle"></i></a></li> </ul> <time class="editorial-article__last-updated sans-6">This page last revised on June 6, 2018</time> <div class="sans-4"><a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/how-to-cite" target="_blank">How to cite this page</a></div> </footer> </div> <div class="container interview-related-achievers"> <hr class="m-t-3 m-b-3"/> <footer class="clearfix small-blocks text-xs-center"> <h3 class="m-b-3 serif-3">If you are inspired by this achiever’s story, you might also enjoy:</h3> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever the-arts shy-introverted spiritual-religious " data-year-inducted="1990" data-achiever-name="Angelou"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-angelou/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/angelou_760_ac-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/01/angelou_760_ac-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Maya Angelou</div> <div class="achiever-block__known-as text-white sans-6">Poet and Historian</div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="text-white achiever-block__text--bottom"> <div class="achiever-block__year sans-4">Inducted in <span class="year-inducted">1990</span></div> </div> </figcaption> </figure> </a> </div> </div> </div> <div class="centered-blocks"> <div class="isotope-achiever the-arts racism-discrimination small-town-rural-upbringing curious write " data-year-inducted="2001" data-achiever-name="Gaines"> <div class="achiever-block view-grid"> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"> <figure class="ratio-container ratio-container--square bg-black"> <div class="lazyload box achiever-block__image" data-sizes="auto" data-bgset="/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gaines-007a-190x190.jpg [(max-width:576px)] | /wp-content/uploads/2016/05/gaines-007a-380x380.jpg"></div> <div class="achiever-block__overlay"></div> <figcaption class="text-xs-center achiever-block__text"> <div class="display--table"> <div class="display--table-cell"> <div class="achiever-block__text--center"> <div class="achiever-block__name text-brand-primary">Ernest J. 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Ellison</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nora-ephron/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nora Ephron</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/julius-erving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Julius Erving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tony-fadell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Tony Fadell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-farmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Farmer, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzanne-farrell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzanne Farrell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-field/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally Field</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-norman-foster/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Norman Foster</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/aretha-franklin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Aretha Franklin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/milton-friedman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Milton Friedman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-fuentes/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Fuentes</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/athol-fugard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Athol Fugard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernest-j-gaines/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernest J. Gaines</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/william-h-gates-iii/"><span class="achiever-list-name">William H. Gates III</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-gehry/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank O. Gehry</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/murray-gell-mann-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Murray Gell-Mann, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-ghosn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Ghosn</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/vince-gill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Vince Gill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ruth-bader-ginsburg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louise-gluck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louise Glück</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/whoopi-goldberg/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Whoopi Goldberg</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jane-goodall/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Jane Goodall</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/doris-kearns-goodwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mikhail-s-gorbachev/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mikhail S. Gorbachev</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nadine-gordimer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nadine Gordimer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-jay-gould/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Jay Gould, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carol-greider-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carol Greider, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-grisham/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Grisham</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dorothy-hamill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dorothy Hamill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/demis-hassabis-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Demis Hassabis, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lauryn-hill/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lauryn Hill</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-edmund-hillary/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Edmund Hillary</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/reid-hoffman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Reid Hoffman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/khaled-hosseini/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Khaled Hosseini, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ron-howard/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ron Howard</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-hume/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Hume</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/louis-ignarro-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Louis Ignarro, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/daniel-inouye/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Daniel K. Inouye</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jeremy-irons/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jeremy Irons</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-irving/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Irving</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/kazuo-ishiguro/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Kazuo Ishiguro</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sir-peter-jackson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sir Peter Jackson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/donald-c-johanson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Donald C. Johanson, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-m-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank M. Johnson, Jr.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/philip-johnson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Philip C. Johnson</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/chuck-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Chuck Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-earl-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Earl Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/quincy-jones/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Quincy Jones</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/beverly-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Beverly Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dereck-joubert/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dereck Joubert</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/paul-kagame/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Paul Kagame</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/thomas-keller-2/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Thomas Keller</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-m-kennedy/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony M. Kennedy</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/b-b-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">B.B. King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carole-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carole King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/coretta-scott-king/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Coretta Scott King</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-kissinger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willem-j-kolff/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willem J. Kolff, M.D., Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wendy-kopp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wendy Kopp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/henry-r-kravis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Henry R. Kravis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/nicholas-d-kristof/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Nicholas D. Kristof</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mike-krzyzewski/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mike Krzyzewski</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ray-kurzwell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ray Kurzweil</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/eric-lander-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Eric S. Lander, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-s-langer-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert S. Langer, Sc.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-leakey/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard E. Leakey</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-lederman-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Lederman, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/robert-lefkowitz-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/congressman-john-r-lewis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Congressman John R. Lewis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/maya-lin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Maya Lin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-lucas/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George Lucas</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/norman-mailer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Norman Mailer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peyton-manning/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peyton Manning</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wynton-marsalis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wynton Marsalis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-c-mather-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John C. Mather, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/johnny-mathis/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Johnny Mathis</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ernst-mayr-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ernst Mayr, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/willie-mays/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Willie Mays</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frank-mccourt/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frank McCourt</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-mccullough/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David McCullough</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/audra-mcdonald/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Audra McDonald</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-william-h-mcraven/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral William H. McRaven, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/w-s-merwin/"><span class="achiever-list-name">W. S. Merwin</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-a-michener/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James A. Michener</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/marvin-minsky-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Marvin Minsky, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/mario-j-molina-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Mario J. Molina, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/n-scott-momaday-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">N. Scott Momaday, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/story-musgrave/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Story Musgrave, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ralph-nader/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ralph Nader</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/peggy-noonan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Peggy Noonan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jessye-norman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jessye Norman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/tommy-norris/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Thomas R. Norris, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/joyce-carol-oates/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Joyce Carol Oates</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pierre-omidyar/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pierre Omidyar</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jimmy-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jimmy Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/larry-page/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Larry Page</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/arnold-palmer/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Arnold Palmer</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/leon-panetta/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Leon Panetta</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/rosa-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Rosa Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/suzan-lori-parks/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Suzan-Lori Parks</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/linus-pauling/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Linus C. Pauling, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/shimon-peres/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Shimon Peres</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/itzhak-perlman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Itzhak Perlman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-david-petraeus/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General David H. Petraeus, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sidney-poitier/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sidney Poitier</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-colin-l-powell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General Colin L. Powell, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/harold-prince/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Harold Prince</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/venki-ramakrishnan-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Venki Ramakrishnan, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lord-martin-rees/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lord Martin Rees</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lloyd-richards/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lloyd Richards</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sally-ride-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sally K. Ride, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonny-rollins/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonny Rollins</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/anthony-romero/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Anthony Romero</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-rosenquist/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James Rosenquist</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/pete-rozelle/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Pete Rozelle</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/bill-russell/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Bill Russell</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/albie-sachs/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Albie Sachs</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/oliver-sacks-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Oliver Sacks, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/jonas-salk-m-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Jonas Salk, M.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-sanger-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick Sanger, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/george-b-schaller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">George B. Schaller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/barry-scheck/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Barry Scheck</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/richard-evans-schultes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Richard Evans Schultes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/general-h-norman-schwarzkopf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, USA</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-schwarzman/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen A. Schwarzman</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/glenn-t-seaborg-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Glenn T. Seaborg, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/neil-sheehan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Neil Sheehan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-alan-shepard-jr/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral Alan B. Shepard, Jr., USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ellen-johnson-sirleaf/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Ellen Johnson Sirleaf</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/carlos-slim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Carlos Slim Helú</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/frederick-w-smith/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Frederick W. Smith</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/stephen-sondheim/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Stephen Sondheim</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/sonia-sotomayor/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Sonia Sotomayor</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wole-soyinka/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wole Soyinka</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/esperanza-spalding/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Esperanza Spalding</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/martha-stewart/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Martha Stewart</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/admiral-james-b-stockdale/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Admiral James B. Stockdale, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/hilary-swank/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Hilary Swank</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/amy-tan/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Amy Tan</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/dame-kiri-te-kanawa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Dame Kiri Te Kanawa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/edward-teller-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Edward Teller, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/twyla-tharp/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Twyla Tharp</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/wayne-thiebaud/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Wayne Thiebaud</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lt-michael-e-thornton-usn/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lt. Michael E. Thornton, USN</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/charles-h-townes-ph-d/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Charles H. Townes, Ph.D.</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/david-trimble/"><span class="achiever-list-name">David Trimble</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/ted-turner/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Robert Edward (Ted) Turner</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/desmond-tutu/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Archbishop Desmond Tutu</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/john-updike/"><span class="achiever-list-name">John Updike</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/gore-vidal/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Gore Vidal</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/antonio-villaraigosa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Antonio Villaraigosa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/lech-walesa/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Lech Walesa</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/herschel-walker/"><span class="achiever-list-name">Herschel Walker</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="/web/20181007204934/http://www.achievement.org/achiever/james-d-watson/"><span class="achiever-list-name">James D. 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Congressman John R. Lewis - Academy of Achievement