died In USA one of the activists of the struggle for civil rights John Lewis, one of the last supporters of Martin Luther king. His beating by police officers in Alabama in 1965, helped to strengthen the resistance of racial segregation.
house of representatives Speaker Democrat Nancy Pelosi calling the deceased John Lewis “one of the greatest heroes of American history.”
a Veteran of the struggle for the rights of blacks died at the age of 80 years. In December last year John Lewis announced that he was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.
Lewis was the youngest and last surviving of the “Big six” activists of the civil rights group headed by Martin Luther king, which had the greatest influence on the movement against racial inequality.
John Lewis was 23 years old when he joined Martin Luther king Jr. and other speakers, speaking near the Lincoln Memorial in the framework of the March on Washington. According to The Washington Post, Lewis was the last extant speaker at the event.
known to the graduate of the Baptist theological Seminary John Lewis came when he led about 600 protestors during the “Bloody Sunday” in Selma (Alabama).
When Lewis was 25, he was knocked down and beaten by the police. His skull was fractured. Dispersed throughout the Americas TV coverage of the atrocities has forced the country to draw attention to racial oppression in the South.
after a few days the Martin Luther king organized several marches in Alabama, and soon after President Lyndon Johnson began to insist that Congress passed the voting rights act. Soon the bill became law, eliminating obstacles blacks to vote.
And Lewis on the head preserved for a lifetime scars.
Remembering “Bloody Sunday,” John Lewis said: “Selma is the place where we brought something very important in our democracy. We have opened up the political process and has enabled hundreds, thousands or millions of people to come to be participants. Our goal was true freedom for every American. Since then, America has made great progress. We – a different society than we were in 1961. And in 2008 we showed the world the true promise of America when we elected President Barack Obama.”
In politics John Lewis went in 1981 when he was elected to the city Council of Atlanta. And in 1986 he won a seat in Congress.
According to Lewis, he was arrested 40 times in 1960-ies, and five as a Congressman. As told by Sky News when he was 80, he said he was ready to go at it again to help reunite immigrant families separated by government trump.
“In America there can be no peace until these little children will not return to my parents and release all of our people,” said Lewis, remembering the “good trouble” with which he was faced, protesting against segregation in his youth.
“If we do not, history will not be kind to us,” he said. “I’ll go to the border. Again I would be arrested. If necessary, I’m willing to go to jail.”
In his speech on the day of the vote of impeachment against trump in the House of representatives John Lewis explained the importance of this vote: “When you see something wrong, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us: “What did you do? What did you say?” We have a mission and mandate to be on the right side of history.”
of Course, a veteran of the civil rights struggle could not remain indifferent to the protests that engulfed the USA after the death of the African-American George Floyd.
“it Was very touching to see hundreds of thousands of people from across America and around the world take to the streets to speak out, to get to what I call a “good problem,” said John Lewis, And because of the actions of young and old, blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asian Americans and native Americans, the people will never forget what happened and how it happened.”
