/John Lewis memorial services honoring civil rights hero begin today in Alabama

John Lewis memorial services honoring civil rights hero begin today in Alabama

The life of Rep. John Lewis, a hero of the civil rights movement and longtime Georgia congressman, will be celebrated over six days in five cities, beginning Saturday in Troy, Alabama, where he was born.

Lewis, a son of Alabama sharecroppers who rose to become the “conscience of Congress” in his role representing Atlanta in the House of Representatives, died July 17 after a monthslong battle with cancer. He was 80.

His body will be brought Saturday morning from an Atlanta funeral home to his hometown in Alabama for a service at Troy University that four of his siblings are expected to attend and where gospel singer Dottie Peoples will perform

Civil Rights icon Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) prepares to pay his respects to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) who lies in state within Statuary Hall during a memorial ceremony on Capitol Hill on Oct. 24, 2019.Melina Mara / Pool via Getty Images file

The man who famously urged activists to get into “good trouble” will lie in repose at the university until a service Saturday night at the Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Selma, Alabama. The church served as the starting point for the voting rights march to Montgomery on March 7, 1965.

Lewis was beaten bloody and suffered a skull fracture when the marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge and were met by some 150 Alabama state troopers, sheriff’s deputies, and posse men, who ordered the demonstrators to disperse. That day earned the moniker “Bloody Sunday,” and images of Lewis being beaten by police in riot gear helped push congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act later that year.

On Sunday morning, Lewis will cross the bridge a final time.

The tribute to his life and accomplishments will continue over the next several days in Montgomery, Alabama and Washington, D.C. before he returns to Atlanta, where Lewis will be interred Thursday.

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