You Cannot Give Up And You Cannot Give In.

John Lewis was born to parents who were sharecroppers in Alabama in 1940. When he was 15 he heard Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the TV and by age 15 John Lewis had preached his first public sermon. He met Rosa parks when he was 17 and Dr. King for the first time when he was 18. This would form a life bond between the two men.
By the time he was 21 he became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders. There were seven whites and six blacks who were determined to ride from Washington DC to New Orleans in an integrated fashion.
He was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted. But despite having his skull fractured and being kicked in the ribs he continued to be part of his nonviolent protest against the civil rights that were being denied to the black citizens of the United States.
He was hit in the head with a wooden crate and left to die at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery Alabama. When it looked like the Freedom Ride was going to be terminated, John Lewis and fellow activist Diane Nash arranged to take it over and bring it to a successful conclusion.
The list of legislative accomplishments, and career achievements that John Lewis attained as the representative of Georgia’s fifth congressional district, is far too numerous to delineate in my morning update. Suffice it to say that this visionary was unwilling to accept life on terms that were brutally unfair, unjust, and unequal. He continued over the course of his lifetime to participate in peaceful demonstrations causing himself to be arrested on more than one occasion.
The bravery, selflessness, passion and determination that John Lewis exemplified in his quest, is a lesson to all of us in persistence in the face of adversity. I greatly admire his tenacity, vision, and courage. He will be truly missed as a thought leader in our country❤️
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