John Lewis is the co-author of the bestselling graphic novel memoir trilogy ‘MARCH’, with Andrew Aydin illustrated by Nate Powell. Moreover, in 2011 Lewis awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. In 2004, Lewis received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
He also received a Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Speech. He was awarded the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan in recognition of his courageous lifelong commitment to the defence of civil and human rights in 1999. John Lewis honoured with many prestigious awards during his time. Similarly, he was also imprisoned for 40 days in the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Sunflower County, Mississippi, after participating in a Freedom Riders activity in that state. The Freedom Rides also exposed the passivity of the government regarding violence against citizens of the country who were simply acting in accordance with the law. There were laws that prohibited black and white riders from sitting next to each other on public transportation. The Freedom Rides along with Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) pressurized the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional. John Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders in 1961. Even the American president, Donald Trump stated that he was “saddened” to hear about Lewis’s demise and ordered all flags to be flown at half-staff. After his death, many political leaders paid tributes to him. Sadly after six months, he passed away at the age of 80, on July 17, 2020. John Lewis was a patient of stage IV pancreatic cancer and remained in the Washington D.C. Throughout his lifetime, he received many prestigious awards and degrees including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Likewise, he was also the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. Representative for Georgia’s 5th congressional district from 1987 till his death in 2020. He was a member of the Democratic Party and was the U.S. John had dedicated his life to protecting human rights and securing civil liberties. which led him to join the burgeoning civil right moment. He was very inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. He grew up during the era of racial discrimination. Seconds later, Cloud unleashed a spasm of state-sanctioned violence that shocked the nation for its sheer brutality.John Lewis was an American civil rights leader and politician.
Acting on Wallace’s order, he said the march was illegal and gave the group two minutes to leave. Williams asked Cloud whether they could talk. Other marchers stopped behind them, shifting their feet uncomfortably on the bridge shoulder. John Cloud of the Alabama Department of Public Safety.
With fellow civil rights activist Hosea Williams at his side, Lewis finally stopped a few feet away from the phalanx of troopers commanded by Maj. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. In this March 7, 1965, file photo, a state trooper swings a billy club at John Lewis, right foreground, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala.