Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights leader and Democratic congressman from Georgia, died Friday after a six-month battle with pancreatic cancer, his family said in a statement. He was 80.
Lewis was an icon of the civil rights era who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. to organize non-violent marches and protests, including the 1963 March on Washington at which King gave his historic "I Have A Dream" speech. In 1965, Lewis led the famous march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights for African Americans. When state troopers ordered the group of roughly 600 peaceful protesters to disperse, they stood their ground, and the troopers deployed violent tactics including tear gas and rubber tubing wrapped in barbed wire. Lewis was beaten by police and his skull fractured — an attack that was captured by television cameras and broadcast to the nation, "galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act," The New York Times writes. The act was passed eight days later.
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