John Lewis

=== SNCC Chairman ===
{{external media
| float  = right
| video1 = [https://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip_151-hd7np1xb3j “Interview with John Lewis” pt.1] conducted in 1979 for America, They Loved You Madly, a precursor to [[Eyes on the Prize]] in which he discusses the sit-ins in Nashville, the philosophy of non-violence, the Freedom Rides, his role in SNCC, and the March on Washington.}}

{{see also|Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|Big Six (activists)}}[[File:Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Leaders of the march) - NARA - 542056.jpg|thumb|right|Leaders of the March on Washington, 1963. Lewis is second from right.]]
In 1963, when [[Charles McDew]] stepped down as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis, a founding member, was elected to take over.<ref>{{cite news |last=Roberts |first=Sam |date=April 13, 2018 |title=Charles McDew, 79, Tactician for Student Civil Rights Group, Dies |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/obituaries/charles-mcdew-79-tactician-for-student-civil-rights-group-dies.html |access-date=July 18, 2020 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617121359/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/obituaries/charles-mcdew-79-tactician-for-student-civil-rights-group-dies.html |archive-date=June 17, 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Adler |first=Erin |date=April 18, 2018 |title=Charles McDew, civil rights activist and Metro State adviser, dies at 79 |url=https://www.startribune.com/charles-mcdew-civil-rights-activist-and-metro-state-adviser-dies-at-79/480174313/ |url-status=live |access-date=July 18, 2020 |newspaper=Star Tribune |location=[[Minneapolis]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180419074332/http://www.startribune.com/charles-mcdew-civil-rights-activist-and-metro-state-adviser-dies-at-79/480174313/ |archive-date=April 19, 2018}}</ref> Lewis's experience was already widely respected. His courage and tenacious adherence to the philosophy of reconciliation and nonviolence had enabled him to emerge as a leader. He had already been arrested 24 times in the nonviolent movement for equal justice.<ref>{{cite web |title=John Lewis, civil rights hero and 'conscience of Congress,' dies at 80 |url=https://www.rollcall.com/2020/07/18/john-lewis-civil-rights-hero-and-conscience-of-congress-has-died/ |newspaper=[[Roll Call]] |date=July 18, 2020 |access-date=July 18, 2020 |archive-date=July 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718132906/https://www.rollcall.com/2020/07/18/john-lewis-civil-rights-hero-and-conscience-of-congress-has-died/ |url-status=live }}</ref> As chairman of SNCC, Lewis was one of the "Big Six" leaders who were organizing the [[March on Washington]] that summer. The youngest,<ref>{{cite news |last=Bunn |first=Curtis |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/we-are-legacy-john-lewis-lives-generations-young-staffers-he-n1235038 |work=[[NBC News]] |title='We are the legacy': John Lewis lives on in the generations of young staffers he empowered |date=July 28, 2020 |access-date=July 31, 2020 |archive-date=July 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728123210/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/we-are-legacy-john-lewis-lives-generations-young-staffers-he-n1235038}}</ref> he was scheduled as the fourth to speak, ahead of the final speaker, Dr. Martin Luther King. Other leaders were [[Whitney Young]], [[A. Philip Randolph]], [[James Farmer]], and [[Roy Wilkins]].

Lewis had written a response to [[Civil Rights Act of 1964#1963 Kennedy civil rights bill|Kennedy's 1963 Civil Rights Bill]]. Lewis and his fellow SNCC workers had suffered from the federal government's passivity in the face of Southern violence.<ref name="Albany"/> He planned to denounce Kennedy's bill for failing to provide protection for African Americans against [[police brutality]], or to provide African Americans with the means to vote; he described the bill as "too little and too late". Advance copies of the speech were distributed on August 27 but encountered opposition from the other chairs of the march who demanded revisions. [[James Forman]] rapidly re-wrote the speech, replacing Lewis's initial assertion "we cannot support, wholeheartedly the [Kennedy] civil rights bill” with “We support it with great reservations."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-era.html |title=The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom |access-date=July 18, 2020 |website=Library of Congress |date=October 10, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200109202657/https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/civil-rights-era.html |archive-date=January 9, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

At the age of twenty-three, John Lewis (b. 1940) was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. As chairman of SNCC, John Lewis planned to deliver a speech denouncing the Kennedy civil rights bill as “too little and too late.” When copies of the speech were distributed on August 27, other chairs of the march insisted that it be revised. James Forman re-wrote Lewis's speech on a portable typewriter in a small anteroom behind Lincoln's statue during the program. SNCC's initial assertion “we cannot support, wholeheartedly the [Kennedy] civil rights bill” was replaced with “We support it with great reservations.”

After Lewis, Dr. King gave his now celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech.<ref>{{cite news|last=Mann|first=Robert|date=August 24, 2013|title=March on Washington reflected optimism and outrage|newspaper=[[The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate]]|url=https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_87a3401f-b8eb-5854-a799-7ff8de67d412.html|access-date=July 31, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731204548/https://www.nola.com/opinions/article_87a3401f-b8eb-5854-a799-7ff8de67d412.html|archive-date=July 31, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Jones|first=William P.|date=February 19, 2016|title=Book Discussion on The March on Washington|url=https://archive.org/details/CSPAN2_20160219_070600_Book_Discussion_on_The_March_on_Washington/start/2305/end/2365?q=ethan+lewis|access-date=July 31, 2020|publisher=[[C-SPAN 2]]}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|year=2014|title=March on Washington: The World Hears of Dr. King's 'Dream'|url=http://www.core-online.org/History/washington_march.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731205218/http://www.core-online.org/History/washington_march.htm|archive-date=July 31, 2020|access-date=July 31, 2020|publisher=[[Congress of Racial Equality]]}}</ref> Historian [[Howard Zinn]] later wrote of this occasion:
{{Blockquote|text=At the great Washington March of 1963, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), John Lewis, speaking to the same enormous crowd that [next] heard King's "I Have a Dream" speech, was prepared to ask the right question: 'Which side is the federal government on?' That sentence was eliminated from his speech by the other organizers of the March to avoid offending the Kennedy Administration.|title=|source=}}[[File:John Lewis 1964-04-16 (cropped).jpg|thumb|right|Lewis in 1964]]In 1964, SNCC opened [[Freedom Schools]], launched the Mississippi [[Freedom Summer]] for voter education and registration.<ref>{{cite book|last=Hale|first=Jon N.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GMZ1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72|title=The Freedom Schools: Student Activists in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement|date=June 7, 2016|publisher=[[Columbia University Press]]|isbn=978-0-231-54182-4|pages=72–75|language=en|access-date=July 18, 2020|archive-date=July 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726161102/https://books.google.com/books?id=GMZ1CwAAQBAJ&pg=PA72|url-status=live}}</ref> Lewis coordinated SNCC's efforts for Freedom Summer, a campaign to register black voters in Mississippi and to engage college student activists in aiding the campaign. Lewis traveled the country, encouraging students to spend their summer break trying to help people vote in Mississippi, which had the lowest number of black voters and strong resistance to the movement.<ref>{{cite news|last=Hannah-Jones|first=Nikole|date=August 19, 2014|title=Long a Force for Progress, a Freedom Summer Legend Looks Back|work=[[ProPublica]]|url=https://www.propublica.org/article/long-a-force-for-progress-a-freedom-summer-legend-looks-back|url-status=live|access-date=July 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200606105750/https://www.propublica.org/article/long-a-force-for-progress-a-freedom-summer-legend-looks-back|archive-date=June 6, 2020}}</ref>

In 1965 Lewis organized some of the voter registration efforts during the 1965 [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Selma voting rights campaign]], and became nationally known during his prominent role in the [[Selma to Montgomery marches]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Selma voting rights campaign|url=https://snccdigital.org/events/selma-voting-rights-campaign/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200611081457/https://snccdigital.org/events/selma-voting-rights-campaign/|archive-date=June 11, 2020|access-date=July 18, 2020|website=SNCC Digital Gateway|language=en}}</ref> On March 7, 1965 – a day that would become known as "[[Selma to Montgomery marches#"Bloody Sunday" events|Bloody Sunday]]" – Lewis and fellow activist [[Hosea Williams]] led over 600 marchers across the [[Edmund Pettus Bridge]] in [[Selma, Alabama]]. At the end of the bridge and the city-county boundary, they were met by [[Alabama Highway Patrol|Alabama State Troopers]] who ordered them to disperse. When the marchers stopped to pray, the police discharged [[tear gas]] and mounted troopers charged the demonstrators, beating them with nightsticks. Lewis's skull was fractured, but he was aided in escaping across the bridge to [[Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)|Brown Chapel]], a church in Selma that served as the movement's headquarters.<ref>{{cite news |last=Herndon |first=Astead W. |date=March 1, 2020 |title='Bloody Sunday' Commemoration Draws Democratic Candidates to Selma |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/us/politics/selma-bridge-march-2020-candidates.html |newspaper=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=July 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200618214842/https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/us/politics/selma-bridge-march-2020-candidates.html |archive-date=June 18, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref> Lewis bore scars on his head from this incident for the rest of his life.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Page |first1=Susan |title=50 years after Selma, John Lewis on unfinished business |url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/24/capital-download-john-lewis-selma-50th-anniversary/23935047/ |access-date=April 20, 2020 |newspaper=[[USA Today]] |date=February 24, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200301180115/https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/02/24/capital-download-john-lewis-selma-50th-anniversary/23935047/ |archive-date=March 1, 2020 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Lewis served as SNCC chairman until 1966, when he was replaced by [[Stokely Carmichael]].<ref>{{cite news|date=July 18, 2020|title=Civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis dies|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53454169|url-status=live|access-date=July 18, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200718044207/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53454169|archive-date=July 18, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Joseph|first=Peniel E.|title=Perspective {{!}} John Lewis leaves behind a powerful legacy of social justice|language=en-US|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/19/john-lewis-leaves-behind-powerful-legacy-social-justice/|access-date=January 2, 2021|issn=0190-8286|archive-date=December 22, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201222112345/https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/19/john-lewis-leaves-behind-powerful-legacy-social-justice/|url-status=live}}</ref>