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    John Lewis timeline: from poverty to civil rights leader

    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, 1940Born the son of black sharecroppers near Troy, Alabama.1959Long 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 1963Serving 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, 1965Lewis 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. More

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    Jailed. Beaten. Yet 1960s activist Fannie Lou Hamer stood up to white supremacy – comic

    Jailed. Beaten. Yet 1960s activist Fannie Lou Hamer stood up to white supremacy – comic As people across the US protest, many are looking back at civil rights activists like Hamer, who resisted brutal violence and imprisonment for years, for inspiration As hundreds of thousands of people continue to protest against police brutality against black […] More

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    Barack Obama pays tribute to Joseph Lowery, civil rights leader dead at 98

    Reverend helped start the influential Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King Jr Civil rights leader the Rev Joseph E Lowery speaks at an event in Atlanta in 2013. Photograph: David Goldman/AP Barack Obama has paid tribute to the civil rights leader Joseph Lowery, calling the charismatic preacher “a giant who changed the face […] More