The Late U.S. Representative
John Lewis
Former United States Representative for Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District; Civil Rights Leader; Author
A sharecropper’s son who grew up in segregated Alabama, the late U.S. Congressman John Lewis served as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, helped organize and serve as keynote speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington, and played many key roles in the Civil Rights Movement. First elected to the House in 1986, Congressman Lewis represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District from 1987 until his death in 2020. He served as Senior Chief Deputy Whip for the Democratic Party in the House and as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, and received numerous eminent awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, and the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award for Lifetime Achievement. Congressman Lewis was also the author of Walking with the Wind and the March trilogy.
“Human trafficking is one of the greatest human rights tragedies of our age, with more individuals living in forced labor today than during the entire period of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.”