This is a photo of John Lewis being arrested in Tennessee for organizing and demonstrating during the Civil Rights movement, 1961.
This is a photo of John Lewis being arrested in Tennessee for organizing and demonstrating during the Civil Rights movement, 1961. In the same year, at age 21, Lewis was attacked by two men in Rock Hill, South Carolina for attempting to enter a waiting room designated for "whites only". He suffered injuries to his face and ribs. Two weeks later, Lewis was arrested in Jackson, Mississippi where he was imprisoned at the State Penitentiary for nearly 40 days. His crime? He refused to leave the "whites only" area at a local bus station.
Upon his release, Lewis and 12 other freedom riders went to Birmingham, Alabama where they were beaten by a mob made up of KKK members who were weilding baseball bats, metal pipes, chains and rocks. The group managed to escape to Montgomery where Lewis was hit in the head with a wooden crate. "It was very violent. I thought I was going to die. I was left lying at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery unconscious," recalled Lewis. In 1965, Lewis was again leading a protest for Civil Rights, marching with some 600 people from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery. As they were leaving Selma, state troopers descended upon the protestors with clubs, bullwhips and tear gas. Lewis suffered a skull fracture on that day known as "Bloody Sunday." Fast forward to 2009—Lewis watched as Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. When the inauguration came to an end, Lewis approached the first Black president with a piece of paper and asked if he could sign it.
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