The civil-rights icon and longtime U.S. representative John Lewis died yesterday at the age of 80. Lewis began his life as the son of an Alabama sharecropper, and became active in the civil-rights movement while he was a student in Nashville, Tennessee. Lewis became nationally known after the March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday” march to Montgomery, Alabama, when he and dozens of other marchers were brutally beaten after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama. In 1986, Lewis was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served his constituents from Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District until his death. President Barack Obama wrote of Lewis: “He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise.” During a commencement address in 2016, Lewis told Bates College graduates how he had been inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. to “get into trouble, good trouble,” and advised them that “you must find a way to get in the way and get in good trouble, necessary trouble … You have a moral obligation, a mission, and a mandate, when you leave here, to go out and seek justice for all. You can do it. You must do it.”
John Lewis: Photos From a Life Spent Getting Into Good Trouble
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A booking shot of the civil-rights activist and politician John Lewis, following his arrest in Jackson, Mississippi, for using a restroom reserved for white people during the Freedom Ride demonstration against racial segregation, on May 24, 1961 #
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The civil-rights leaders (from front to back) John Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, and James Farmer hold a news conference in Montgomery, Alabama, on May 23, 1961, to announce that the Freedom Rides will continue. Lewis, one of the riders who was beaten, wears a bandage on his head. #
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Original caption, from May 24, 1961: "With the Adhesive tape 'X' still on his head, marking the spot where he was struck in racial violence at Montgomery, Alabama, John Lewis, student leader of one of the groups of 'Freedom Riders,' enters a police van after his arrest in Jackson, Mississippi. Lewis and 26 other 'Freedom Riders' were arrested on their arrival in a heavily guarded bus." #
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Original caption, from August 28, 1963: "Portrait of John Lewis, Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, speaking at the Lincoln Memorial to participants in the March on Washington" #
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Civil-rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office after the March on Washington in August 1963. From left: Willard Wirtz (Secretary of Labor); Floyd McKissick (Congress of Racial Equality); Mathew Ahmann (National Catholic Conference for Interracial Justice); Whitney Young (National Urban League); Martin Luther King Jr. (Southern Christian Leadership Conference); John Lewis (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee); Rabbi Joachim Prinz (American Jewish Congress); A. Philip Randolph, with the Reverend Eugene Carson Blake partially visible behind him; President John F. Kennedy; Walter Reuther (labor leader), with Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson partially visible behind him; and Roy Wilkins (NAACP). #
Warren K. Leffler / Library of Congress -
Civil-rights leaders, including future Representative John Lewis (third from left) and Gloria Richardson (third from right), the chair of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee, link hands with others as they march in protest of a scheduled speech by the pro-segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace in Cambridge, Maryland, in May 1964. #
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Original caption: "John Lewis, 24, national chairman of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), is ushered into a police patrol wagon during racial demonstration here April 29, 1964. Nashville Mayor Beverly Briley said here April 29th that U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy has launched an investigation into 'police brutality' in this city, where police officers have prodded and dragged over 200 civil rights demonstrators during the [illegible]." #
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In this February 23, 1965, photo, Wilson Baker left foreground, a public-safety director, warns of the dangers of night demonstrations at the start of a march in Selma, Alabama. Second from right foreground is John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. #
Associated Press -
Original caption, from March 7, 1965: "Long line of Negro marchers, led by SNCC representative John Lewis (R) and Rev. Hosea Williams, leaves bridge across Alabama River past Alabama state troopers (R) and sign 'welcoming' visitors to Selma, 'The city with 100% Human Interest.' Fifty-yards further on the Negroes were halted by state troopers who used clubs and tear gas to break up their march to Montgomery." #
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A state trooper swings a billy club at John Lewis right foreground to break up a civil-rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965. Lewis sustained a fractured skull. #
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Martin Luther King Jr. (center) with John Lewis (second from left) of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; King's aide the Reverend Ralph Abernathy (third from left); Ralph Bunche (fifth from left); Mrs. King (next to King); and the Reverend Hosea Williams (carrying a little girl on the right) arrive in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 25, 1965. King led an estimated 10,000 or more civil-rights marchers on the last leg of their Selma-to-Montgomery march. #
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Atlanta City Councilman John Lewis holds the March 1965 issue of Life magazine in his office in Atlanta on August 7, 1986. The cover photo shows Lewis leading the first Selma, Alabama, civil-rights march with Hosea Williams. #
Ric Feld / AP -
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President Bill Clinton listens to speakers along with the Reverend Jesse Jackson (left) and Congressman John Lewis on March 5, 2000. Clinton was attending ceremonies marking the 35th anniversary of the "Bloody Sunday" march. #
Larry Downing / Reuters -
President Clinton (center), flanked by the Reverend Jesse Jackson, Coretta Scott King, and John Lewis and his wife, Lillian, leads thousands of marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 5, 2000, commemorating the 35th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. #
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John Lewis is comforted by Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton of Washington, D.C., and Coretta Scott King during the unveiling of an engraving at the Lincoln Memorial marking the spot where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington, D.C., on August 22, 2003. #
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John Lewis is arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police after blocking First Street NW in front of the Capitol with fellow supporters of immigration reform on October 8, 2013. #
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President Barack Obama holds hands with Amelia Boynton Robinson, who was beaten on Bloody Sunday, as they, the first family, and others, including John Lewis (left of Obama), walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, for the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, on March 7, 2015. From front left are Marian Robinson, Sasha Obama, Michelle Obama, Lewis, President Obama, Amelia Boynton Robinson, and Adelaide Sanford. #
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President Barack Obama hugs John Lewis, one of the original marchers at Selma, during an event marking the 50th anniversary of the Selma-to-Montgomery civil-rights march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 2015. #
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John Lewis holds a copy of the Constitution during a news conference on Capitol Hill on March 3, 2016. Senate Democrats and members of the Congressional Black Caucus were urging Senate Republicans to meet with President Obama's Supreme Court nominee and hold hearings and a vote. #
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John Lewis thanks anti-gun-violence supporters following a rally with fellow Democrats on the east front steps of the Capitol on October 4, 2017. Democratic members of Congress held the rally to honor the victims of a mass shooting in Las Vegas and to demand passage of the bipartisan King-Thompson legislation to strengthen background checks and establish a select committee on gun violence. #
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From left: Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, President of CASA in Action Gustavo Torres, Representative John Lewis of Georgia, Representative Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, and Representative Judy Chu of California march to the headquarters of U.S. Customs and Border Protection during a protest in Washington, D.C., on June 13, 2018. Democratic congressional members joined activists to protest the Trump administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the border. #
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John Lewis poses with Joan Mooney, the president of the Faith and Politics Institute, at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 1, 2019, during a stop on the Congressional Civil-Rights Pilgrimage. #
Julie Bennett / AP -
John Lewis speaks to a crowd during the annual Bloody Sunday March across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, on March 1, 2020. Among those nearby are the Reverend Al Sharpton, the Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, and the Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren. #
Joshua Lott / AFP / Getty -
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An image of John Lewis appears during a film screening at the Brooklyn Army Terminal in New York on July 17, 2020. The opening night featured a documentary called John Lewis: Good Trouble, by Dawn Porter, a chronicle of the life and career of Lewis, the legendary civil-rights advocate. #
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John Lewis prepares to pay his respects to Representative Elijah Cummings, who lies in state in National Statuary Hall, during a memorial ceremony on Capitol Hill on October 24, 2019. #
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