Even at 5-foot-6, John Lewis, the Georgia Democrat serving in the House of Representatives, was a giant in the history of this nation and an icon as a civil rights activist.
He was a Freedom Rider and participated in the March 7, 1965, civil rights march from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery, Ala. When marching peacefully across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, he and other marchers were attacked by Alabama police officers and Lewis suffered a fractured skull.
Not deterred, Lewis continued to be a community activist in his home state of Georgia and became an Atlanta City Council member. In 1986, he became a member of Congress and continued in that distinguished role until his death on July 17, after courageously fighting cancer.
How does one measure the quality and worthiness of someone’s life? One way is to determine whether he or she consistently did the right thing. And that right thing for Lewis was the pursuit of justice, and Lewis was a giant for justice.