John Lewis was just 25 when he led 600 people to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma on March 7, 1965, two weeks after the tragic murder of civil rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper in Marion County.
Mr. Lewis and leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee organized a march from Selma to Montgomery to challenge the denial of voting rights to Black people in Alabama.
John Lewis stood at the front when state troopers violently attacked the marchers with whips and clubs, brutally beating scores of peaceful protestors. He suffered a fractured skull and was hospitalized.
On March 25, 1965, John Lewis joined Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the steps of the capitol in Montgomery to address thousands of nonviolent protestors who had marched 54 miles from Selma.
The marchers’ historic entry into Montgomery ultimately resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which dramatically shifted political power throughout most …