In 1955, at the age of fifteen, John Lewis listened to radio reports of the Montgomery bus boycott. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership and use of Christianity to foment social change, Lewis went on to become a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), a keynote speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and a Congressional representative from Georgia.
Born on 21 February 1940, John Lewis was one of ten children raised by tenant farmers Willie Mae and Eddie Lewis. Raised near Troy, Alabama, Lewis was the first member of his family to graduate from high school. He attended college in Nashville, Tennessee, where he earned degrees at the American Baptist Seminary and at Fisk University. While in Nashville, Lewis participated in nonviolence seminars conducted by James Lawson and the Highlander Folk School and became a devoted follower of Gandhian nonviolence.
In 1960, Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations in protest of Nashville ’s segregated lunch counters. He then furthered his commitment to the civil rights struggle by becoming a founding member of SNCC and participat ing in the Freedom Rides campaign. Knowing that incarceration from these activities could jeopardize his graduation from college, Lewis proclaimed, “This is [the] most important decision of my life, to decide to give up all if necessary for the Freedom Ride, that Justice and Freedom might come to the Deep South.”
In an effort to bring more young people into its organization, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) elected Lewis to its board in 1962. Lewis also headed SNCC between 1963 and 1966; and as chairman of the organization, he was a keynote speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and one of the “Big Six” black leaders who met with President Kennedy before the march. During the1965 Selma campaign, Lewis and Hosea Williams led marchers across the Edmund Petus Bridge, where they were brutally beaten by state troopers in an incident that became known as “Bloody Sunday.”
When Stokely Carmichael was elected chairman of SNCC in 1966, Lewis left the organization and directed the Voter Education Project. In 1977, President Carter appointed Lewis to head ACTION, a federal agency aimed at promoting volunteerism. Shortly thereafter, Lewis served on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from Georgia, a position Lewis still holds today.