Civil rights activists pay tribute to Rep. John Lewis

Following the death of civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Friday, fellow activists took to social media late Friday and early Saturday to pay tribute to his life and memory.

Rev. Jesse Jackson, who in 1965 participated alongside Lewis in the famous protest march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery to demand voting rights protection for Black Americans, called the congressman "the gift that kept on the giving" and the "valedictorian" of the class of civil rights leaders who "broke out of the bubble of segregation in the 1960s."

Andrew Young, another early civil rights leader who previously represented the same Georgia district as Lewis in Congress and later served as the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the mayor of Atlanta, lauded his friend's ability to always remain calm, grounded, and humble, even in heated situations. Young said Lewis didn't have a "trace of arrogance or hubris about him."

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Rev. Al Sharpton called Lewis his role model and said "he changed the world without hate, rancor, arrogance," while Martin Luther King III, the oldest son of Martin Luther King Jr., said Lewis "was an American treasure" who "gave a voice to the voiceless."