In 2008, on the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s death, John Lewis was one of 13 people that The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sat down with to record their stories.
We are re-releasing these interviews as a 13-part podcast hosted by Multimedia Journalist Ryon Horne.
Lewis is synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement. In 1965, during a protest in Selma, Ala., Lewis became the symbol of the assault on civil rights when state troopers attacked peaceful marchers near the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The goal of the march was to bring attention to the lack of voting rights in Alabama and across the country for Blacks. The images of Lewis being bludgeoned with a baton by an officer broadcast into living rooms across the country, and the events on that day became known forever as Bloody Sunday.
That wasn’t the first time America was introduced to Lewis. In 1963, he was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. In 1961 Lewis was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, young activist who wanted to test segregation laws at interstate bus terminals.
Lewis was elected to Congress in November of 1986 as U.S. representative of Georgia’s 5th congressional district. He never lost an election. He died in 2020 at the age of 80.
It’s also been recorded that Lewis was arrested 40 times during the Civil Rights Movement and five times as a congressman. Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2010, it’s safe to say Lewis, like most civil rights icons, had put his time in.
Along with Earl Caldwell, Andrew Young, Tyrone Brooks, Christine King Farris, Martin Luther King III, Xernona Clayton and Bernice King, and those who have left us — Liewis, Ralph David Abernathy, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the Rev. Samuel Billy Kyles, Kathryn Johnson — each gives us a glimpse, through their relationships with King, inside the making of history.
Each episode will be made available through the Unapologetically ATL newsletter, but you can also subscribe to “The Voices of King” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, Stitcher or wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss an episode.
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