John Lewis

=== Freedom Riders ===
[[File: President Clinton at a Dinner Honoring Rep. John Lewis (2000).webm|thumb|Video of President Clinton delivering remarks at a dinner honoring Representative John Lewis]]
In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original [[Freedom Riders]].<ref name="ReportingCivilRights" /><ref>{{cite web |title=Freedom Rides |url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/freedom-rides |website=King Encyclopedia |date=June 29, 2017 |publisher=[[Stanford University]] |location=Stanford, California |access-date=April 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200418222156/https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/freedom-rides |archive-date=April 18, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> The group of seven blacks and six whites planned to ride on interstate buses from Washington, D.C. to [[New Orleans]] to challenge the policies of Southern states along the route that had imposed segregated seating on the buses, violating federal policy for interstate transportation. The Freedom Ride, originated by the [[Fellowship of Reconciliation]] and revived by [[James Farmer]] and the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE), was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in ''[[Boynton v. Virginia]]'' (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional. The Freedom Rides revealed the passivity of local, state and federal governments in the face of violence against law-abiding citizens.<ref name="CNN">{{cite web |url=http://articles.cnn.com/2001-05-10/us/access.lewis.freedom.rides_1_white-men-angry-mob-blacks?_s=PM:US |work=[[CNN]] |location=Atlanta |title=Civil Rights Timeline |date=January 31, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120808153339/http://articles.cnn.com/2001-05-10/us/access.lewis.freedom.rides_1_white-men-angry-mob-blacks?_s=PM%3AUS |archive-date=August 8, 2012}}</ref> The project was publicized; and organizers had notified the Department of Justice about it. It depended on the [[Alabama]] police to protect the riders, although the state was known for notorious racism. It did not undertake actions except assigning [[FBI]] agents to record incidents. After extreme violence broke out in [[South Carolina]] and Alabama, the [[Kennedy Administration]] called for a cooling-off period, with a moratorium on Freedom Rides.<ref name="Albany">{{cite web|title=My Name Is Freedom: Albany, Georgia|url=http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/oldzinn.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://archive.today/19990219104007/http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/oldzinn.htm|archive-date=February 19, 1999|website=You Can't Be Neutral on A Moving Train|publisher=[[Beacon Press]]|location=Boston}}</ref>

In the South, Lewis and other nonviolent Freedom Riders were beaten by angry mobs and arrested. At age 21, Lewis was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted while in [[Rock Hill, South Carolina]]. When he tried to, a whites-only waiting room, two white men attacked him, injuring his face and kicking him in the ribs. Two weeks later Lewis joined a "Freedom Ride" bound for [[Jackson, Mississippi]]. Near the end of his life, Lewis said of this time, "We were determined not to let any act of violence keep us from our goal. We knew our lives could be threatened, but we had made up our minds not to turn back."<ref name="SmithsonianMagazine">{{cite web |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Freedom-Riders.html?c=y&page=1 |title=The Freedom Riders, Then and Now |work=[[Smithsonian Magazine]] |access-date=July 26, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120924100804/http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/The-Freedom-Riders.html?c=y&page=1 |archive-date=September 24, 2012 |url-status=live}}</ref> As a result of his Freedom Rider activities, Lewis was imprisoned for 40 days in the notorious [[Mississippi State Penitentiary]] in [[Sunflower County, Mississippi|Sunflower County]].<ref>{{cite news |last=Minor |first=Bill |url=http://www.desototimes.com/articles/2010/04/02/opinion/editorials/doc4bb645d51cbc1161890108.txt |title=New law meant to eliminate existing 'donut hole' |newspaper=DeSoto Times-Tribune |location=Nesbit, Mississippi |date=April 2, 2010 |access-date=February 25, 2019 |archive-date=September 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909151738/https://opinion/editorials/new-law-meant-to-eliminate-existing-donut-hole/article_55d77eea-64a8-5af6-be0f-a08012941644.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In an interview with [[CNN]] during the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides, Lewis recounted the violence he and the 12 other original Freedom Riders endured. In [[Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], the Riders were beaten by an unrestrained mob including KKK members (notified of their arrival by police) with baseball bats, chains, lead pipes, and stones. The police arrested them, and led them across the border into Tennessee before letting them go. The Riders reorganized and rode to [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], where they were met with more violence.<ref>{{cite web |date=May 11, 2001 |title=40 years later, mission accomplished |url=https://www.cnn.com/2001/fyi/news/05/11/freedom.riders/ |url-status=live |access-date=July 18, 2020 |website=CNN |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040813044815/http://www.cnn.com/2001/fyi/news/05/11/freedom.riders/ |archive-date=August 13, 2004}}</ref> There Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate. "It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the [[Greyhound bus]] station in Montgomery unconscious", said Lewis, remembering the incident.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/05/10/access.lewis.freedom.rides/ |title=John Lewis: 'I thought I was going to die' |date=May 10, 2001 |work=[[CNN]] |access-date=March 8, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160401002256/http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/05/10/access.lewis.freedom.rides/ |archive-date=April 1, 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref>

When CORE gave up on the Freedom Ride because of the violence, Lewis and fellow activist [[Diane Nash]] arranged for Nashville students from Fisk and other colleges to take it over and bring it to a successful conclusion.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Scott |first1=William R. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vVvhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA229 |title=Upon these Shores: Themes in the African-American Experience 1600 to the Present |last2=Shade |first2=William G. |date=October 31, 2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-27620-1 |language=en |access-date=July 18, 2020 |archive-date=September 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200909151745/https://books.google.com/books?id=vVvhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA229 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="auto">{{cite book |last1=Lewis |first1=John |first2=Michael |last2=d'Orso |author-link2=Mike D'Orso |title=Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mm58BgAAQBAJ |publisher=Harvest Books |year=1999 |edition=reprint |isbn=978-1-4767-9771-7 |pages=143–144 |access-date=July 26, 2020 |archive-date=August 3, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803204051/https://books.google.com/books?id=mm58BgAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In February 2009, 48 years after the Montgomery attack, Lewis received a nationally televised apology from Elwin Wilson, a white southerner and former [[Ku Klux Klan|Klansman]].<ref name="abcnews.go.com">{{cite web |url=https://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6813984 |title=Once Race Riot Enemies, Now Friends |work=[[ABC News]] |date=February 6, 2009 |access-date=August 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090211112207/http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=6813984|archive-date=February 11, 2009|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite web |first1=Claire |last1=Shipman |first2=Cindy |last2=Smith |first3=Lee |last3=Ferran |url=https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6813984&page=1 |title=Man Asks Entire Town for Forgiveness for Racism |work=ABC News |date=February 6, 2009 |access-date=August 22, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090309165408/http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=6813984&page=1 |archive-date=March 9, 2009 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Lewis wrote in 2015 that he had known the young activists [[Michael Schwerner]] and [[Andrew Goodman (activist)|Andrew Goodman]] from New York. They, along with [[James Chaney]], a local African-American activist from Mississippi, were [[Murders of Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner|abducted and murdered]] in June 1964 in [[Neshoba County, Mississippi]], by members of the [[Ku Klux Klan]] including law enforcement.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mm58BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 |last1=Lewis |first1=John |last2=Michael d'Orso |title=Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement |publisher=Harvest Books |year=1999 |edition=reprint |isbn=978-1-4767-9771-7 |page=261 |access-date=July 26, 2020 |archive-date=July 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730140119/https://books.google.com/books?id=mm58BgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261 |url-status=live }}</ref>