Born in rural Alabama during the dark days of Jim Crow segregation, representative John Lewis rose from poverty to become a leader of the civil rights movement and later was elected to congress. Here is a timeline of some major events in Lewis life.
21 February, 1940
Born the son of black sharecroppers near Troy, Alabama.
1959
Long interested in civil rights and inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, Lewis participates in a series of workshops on nonviolent confrontation while attending college in Nashville, Tennessee. He goes on to participate in sit-ins, mass meetings and the landmark Freedom Rides of 1961 that tested racial segregation in the South.
January 1963
Serving as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis arrives in Selma, Alabama, to help register black people to vote. Eight months later and just days after helping Martin Luther King Jr. organize the March on Washington, Lewis is arrested for the first of more than 40 times, for civil rights activities in Selma.
7 March, 1965
Lewis is beaten by an Alabama state trooper while attempting to lead an estimated 600 voting rights marchers out of Selma on the way to Montgomery in an violent confrontation now known as Bloody Sunday. He spends two days in a hospital.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
