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John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was a civil rights activist and politician whose efforts helped end legal segregation in the South.
Lewis was born in the still-segregated state of Alabama. When he was 11, he visited Buffalo, New York, with his uncle and saw firsthand what life was like without segregation. Soon after, Lewis became interested in civil rights. He met Rosa Parks when he was 17 and Martin Luther King Jr. the following year. Lewis organized sit-ins and other protests in Nashville while a student at Fisk University. It was around this time he coined the concept of “good trouble, necessary trouble.”
Lewis joined the Freedom Riders in 1961, facing extreme violence and arrests, but he never backed down. He became the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, giving his speech right before Martin Luther King Jr.
Lewis went on the serve in the US House of Representatives from 1987 until his death. When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, Lewis said, “I just wish the others were around to see this day… To the people who were beaten, put in jail, were asked questions they could never answer to register to vote, it’s amazing.” Lewis devoted his entire life to making America a better place for all its citizens.
'5 Sheets of 100 First-Class Forever® USPS postage stamps. *The slash over “Forever” in the image is to protect it from being used to produce counterfeit postage. Actual stamps will not have this.
