Civil Rights Leader John Lewis Never Gave Up Or Gave In
The longtime Georgia congressman died Friday of pancreatic cancer. Lewis, who devoted his life to activism and the civil rights movement, was known as "the conscience of the Congress."
Longtime Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis has died after a battle with stage four pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.
The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis was a central figure in the key civil rights battles of the 1960s, including the Freedom Rides and the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march.
Lewis considered his native Alabama hallowed ground because of the blood shed there in pursuit of a transformation of America. For decades, the Democrat led bipartisan congressional delegations on annual pilgrimages to major civil rights sites in the state.
On a 1996 trip, Lewis introduced, a now-deceased leader of the Birmingham movement.
