John Lewis, the nation’s most prominent living link to the civil rights era, already has enough honors, plaques and awards to fill a room.
But there was still something a little spine-tingling for the Atlanta Democratic congressman and former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee as he stood before colleagues and dignitaries in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall on Wednesday night.
Accepting the Freedom Award from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, the 74-year-old Lewis recalled the first time he strode under the dome and through the marbled halls, on Aug. 28, 1963. Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and others met with congressional leaders from both chambers and both parties before speaking to the March on Washington.
“If somebody told me then that one day I would be standing here in Statuary Hall being honored by the U.S. Capitol Historical Society, I would have told him: ‘You’re crazy; you’re out of your mind,’” Lewis said.
“Each day that I’m here I learn more and more about the significance of this building, the paintings, the statues, the different rooms. Sometimes I feel like these statues are speaking to me and saying: ‘John Lewis, you stand up, you speak up, you speak out, you find a way to get in the way.’”
The award was established in 1993 “to recognize and honor individuals and organizations that have advanced greater public understanding and appreciation for freedom as represented by the U.S. Capitol and Congress,” according to the historical society.
Past recipients of the Freedom Award include Sen. George McGovern, Sen. Bob Dole, film-maker Ken Burns and journalist Cokie Roberts.
Lewis grew up as the son of a sharecropper in rural Alabama before getting involved in the civil rights movement and participating in some of its seminal moments, from the Freedom Rides to the March on Washington to the Selma to Montgomery march.
He was first elected to Congress from an Atlanta district in 1986. Lately Lewis has been in high demand across the country as the 50th anniversaries of a slew of civil rights moments take place, and he shows off a series of graphic novels about his life. Among Lewis’ cascade of awards and honors is the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., spoke of his travels with Lewis to Selma, Ala., where the congressman participates in a yearly walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to commemorate when he and other marchers for voting rights were attacked by police in 1965.
“He did not match violence with violence,” McCarthy said. “He stood with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and demanded peace in the face of war, solidarity in the face of division and love in the face of hate.”
Lynda Bird Johnson Robb told the crowd that her father, President Lyndon B. Johnson, could not have pushed for and signed the Voting Rights Act without Lewis’ actions.
“Whenever daddy needed him, he was there,” Robb said.
Lewis urged the crowd, as he often does, to continue fighting for civil rights and nonviolence.
“I still believe no matter the disappointments, the setbacks, or the interruption,” Lewis said, “we as a nation, as a people, are still on a journey down a very long road toward the liberation of all humankind.”
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