Black History Matters 365

BH365 Moment: John Lewis, Civil Rights Activist

August 15, 2020 BHM365 is a weekly podcast series hosted by Jo Scaife a Marketplace Entrepreneur
Black History Matters 365
BH365 Moment: John Lewis, Civil Rights Activist
Show Notes

JOHN LEWIS: CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST

“It does not matter what language you speak or the color of your skin, it does not matter whether you worship one God, many gods or no gods. We are one people, one family. (John Lewis)

Died Friday, July 17, 2020 at the age of 80. 

John Lewis was a longtime civil rights activist, congressman, author and ordained Baptist minister who preached about getting in “good trouble”. He was a founding member and former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis was among the demonstrators beaten by police after walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. At 23 years old, he was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which he helped to organize, stepping to the microphone shortly before the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. John Lewis, was a son of a sharecropper, who graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary (now American Baptist College) in Nashville, Tennessee, and later earned a bachelor’s degree in religion and philosophy from Fisk University. 

In 1961, Lewis applied to be a Freedom Rider, a member of a corps of civil rights workers who sought to desegregate buses in the South. Appointed by President Jimmy Carter in the 1970's to lead a national volunteer program. In 1981, he was elected to the Atlanta City Council and served as a member of Congress since his 1986 election. President Barack Obama presented in 2011 the Presidential Medal of Freedom to U.S. Rep. John Lewis. 

Civil Rights Room in the Nashville Public Library in Nashville, Tennessee, written above the door his famous words:

“IF NOT US, THEN WHO? IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?"


To find out more about African American history order the new curriculum, "BH365: An Inclusive Account of American History" at www.blackhistory365education.com.

Biographical Information: Book:  Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America, Wikipedia