Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Jenna Steward - John Lewis

John Lewis was born February 21th 1940. He went to Fisk University and received a bachelor degree in religion philosophy. Lewis was the chairman for the SNCC (student non-violent coordinating committee) he organized lunch sit-ins in Nashville, bus boycotts and non violent protests. In 1961 he joined the freedom riders he is one of the original 13. He was taken to jail with them and beaten. He was arrested 24 times total for the struggle of equal justice. Then in 1964 he planned the SNCC to go to Mississippi to help protest for black voters.Today he is the U.S Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district.
             

 John Lewis has come very far in his life from being one of the students who were beatin badly is protest to a U.S representative. He has made a lot of accomplishments in his life but the two that stood out to me was he helped plan the Washington march in August of 1963 for the famous I Have A Dream speech, He was the youngest speaker that day at age 23. I think that takes a lot for a young black man in that time to stand up in front of all those people and speak. Today he is unfortunately one of the last people still alive who spoke that day. On March 7th 1965 was a day known as Bloody Sunday. John Lewis and Hosea Williams led over 600 marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma Alabama. At the end of the bridge state troopers where there waiting on them, they stopped at first to all pray then continued toward the troopers. The police started letting out tear gas and beating them with night sticks. John Lewis was beaten and had his skull fractured. He luckily got away but unfortunately he still has scars noticeable to this day on his head from being beaten. I think John Lewis was a great civil rights leader, for him to be a leader at age 21 to organizing everything to be beaten and put in jail and still be non violent towards the whites.

7 comments:

  1. Marching on a legendary protest, speaking at age 23 and having such an impact on people and history, what an influential guy.

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  2. WOW this resume is long. He did alot good than bad.

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  3. I can not believe how many times he was arrested and he continued his fight. That is truly remarkable.

    Emily

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  4. After being arrested that many times, it really shows the adversity these fighters went through for there cause.

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  5. The fact he got arrested that many times and still continued to fight showed his true determination.

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  6. A common trait I'm finding between all of these figures is determination. No matter how bad situations got these people kept fighting for what they believed in.

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  7. It's hard to believe he was arrested 24 times total for simply standing up for what he believed in.

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