Скачать или смотреть Rep John Lewis dies at age 80, Best video interview on his life in his last days

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-c...

John Robert Lewis (February 21, 1940 – July 17, 2020) was an American politician and civil rights leader. He was the U.S. Representative for Georgia's 5th congressional district from 1987 until his death in 2020. He was the dean of the Georgia congressional delegation. The district he served includes the northern three-fourths of Atlanta. He was a member of the Democratic Party.

Lewis, who as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington, played many key roles in the Civil Rights Movement and its actions to end legalized racial segregation in the United States. He was a member of the Democratic Party leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and had served from 1991 until death as a Chief Deputy Whip and Senior Chief Deputy Whip from 2003 to his death.

Lewis received many honorary degrees and awards from eminent national and international institutions, including the highest civilian honor of the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lewis died on July 17, 2020 at the age 80 from cancer.

Early life
John Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, the third of ten children of Willie Mae (née Carter) and Eddie Lewis.[3][4] His parents were sharecroppers[5] in rural Pike County, Alabama.

As a young child, Lewis had little interaction with white people; by the time he was six, Lewis had seen only two white people in his life.[7] As he grew older, though, he began taking trips into town with his family, where he experienced racism and segregation, such as at the public library in Troy.[8][9][10] However, Lewis had relatives who lived in northern cities, and he learned from them that the North had integrated schools, buses, and businesses. When Lewis was 11, one of his uncles took him on a trip to Buffalo, New York, and, afterwards, he was even more acutely aware of Troy's segregation.

In 1955, Lewis first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio,[12] and, when the Montgomery Bus Boycott (led by King) began later that year, Lewis closely followed the news about it.[13] Lewis would later meet Rosa Parks when he was 17, and met King for the first time when he was 18.[14]


Freedom Rides
In 1961, Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders.There were seven whites and six blacks who were determined to ride from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in an integrated fashion. At that time, several states of the old Confederacy still enforced laws prohibiting black and white riders from sitting next to each other on public transportation. The Freedom Ride, originated by the Fellowship of Reconciliation and revived by James Farmer and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), was initiated to pressure the federal government to enforce the Supreme Court decision in Boynton v. Virginia (1960) that declared segregated interstate bus travel to be unconstitutional. The Freedom Rides also exposed the passivity of the government regarding violence against citizens of the country who were simply acting in accordance with the law.[18] The federal government had trusted the notoriously racist Alabama police to protect the Riders, but did nothing itself, except to have FBI agents take notes. The Kennedy Administration then called for a cooling-off period, a moratorium on Freedom Rides.

Lewis was honored with the 1997 sculpture by Thornton Dial, The Bridge, at Ponce de Leon Avenue and Freedom Park, Atlanta. In 1999, Lewis was awarded the Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan in recognition of his courageous lifelong commitment to the defense of civil and human rights. In that same year he received the Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Speech.

In 2001, the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation awarded Lewis the Profile in Courage Award "for his extraordinary courage, leadership and commitment to civil rights."It is a lifetime achievement award and has been given out only twice, John Lewis and William Winter (in 2008). The next year he was awarded the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP.

In 2004, Lewis received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 2006, he received the US Senator John Heinz Award for Greatest Public Service by an Elected or Appointed Official, an award given out annually by Jefferson Awards.In September 2007, Lewis was awarded the Dole Leadership Prize from the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas.

Lewis was the only living speaker from the March on Washington present on the stage during the inauguration of Barack Obama. Obama signed a commemorative photograph for Lewis with the words, "Because of you, John. Barack Obama."

In 2010, Lewis was awarded the First LBJ Liberty and Justice for All Award, given to him by the Lyndon Baines Johnson Foundation, and the next year, Lewis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.
wikipedia..