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[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. Res. 82 Agreed to Senate (ATS)]

<DOC>

117th CONGRESS
  1st Session
S. RES. 82

 Honoring the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis and commending John 
 Robert Lewis for his towering achievements in the nonviolent struggle 
                           for civil rights.

_______________________________________________________________________

                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                             March 1, 2021

Mr. Ossoff (for himself, Mr. Romney, Mr. Warnock, Mr. Reed, Mr. Cardin, 
and Mr. Leahy) submitted the following resolution; which was considered 
                             and agreed to

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
 Honoring the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis and commending John 
 Robert Lewis for his towering achievements in the nonviolent struggle 
                           for civil rights.

Whereas John Robert Lewis (referred to in this preamble as ``Mr. Lewis'') was 
        born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama, the third of 10 children 
        born to his mother Willie Mae (nee Carter) and his father Eddie Lewis, a 
        sharecropper;
Whereas, at 5 years old, Mr. Lewis was given responsibility for the family 
        chicken flock, including his favorite, Li'l Pullet, which he tended with 
        great care and to which he would preach nearly every evening, which--

    (1) led his family to give Mr. Lewis the childhood nickname of 
``Preacher''; and

    (2) instilled in Mr. Lewis an early desire to enter the clergy;

Whereas, from a young age, Mr. Lewis insisted on attending school daily, defying 
        his parents' instructions to work the family farm, which established 
        within Mr. Lewis a lifelong commitment to education and enlightenment;
Whereas when Mr. Lewis was 15 years old he was ``shaken to the core'', as 
        described in his memoir ``Walking With the Wind'', by the Mississippi 
        murder of Emmett Till, deepening his passionate opposition to 
        segregation and Jim Crow laws;
Whereas, as a high school student, Mr. Lewis intensely followed the progress of 
        the Montgomery Bus Boycott (referred to in this preamble as the 
        ``Boycott'') in 1955 and 1956, awakening him to the power of nonviolent 
        resistance to segregation;
Whereas Mr. Lewis wrote in his memoir that the Boycott ``changed my life more 
        than any other event before or since'';
Whereas, while following the progress of the Boycott, Mr. Lewis was inspired by 
        radio broadcasts featuring one of the leaders of the Boycott, Dr. Martin 
        Luther King Jr. (referred to in this preamble as ``Dr. King'')--

    (1) whom Mr. Lewis' parents referred to as ``that young preacher''; and

    (2) whose example deepened Mr. Lewis' ambition to become a minister;

Whereas, inspired by Dr. King, Mr. Lewis, on February 16, 1956, 5 days before 
        his 16th birthday, preached his first public sermon, entitled ``A 
        Praying Mother'', at Macedonia Baptist Church in Troy, Alabama, which 
        came from the First Book of Samuel and discussed the example of Hannah, 
        mother of Samuel, which sermon made such an impact that it was published 
        in the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper;
Whereas, on February 18, 1956, 2 days after Mr. Lewis gave his first public 
        sermon, a relative of Mr. Lewis, Thomas Brewer of Columbus, Georgia, a 
        voting rights activist working with the National Association for the 
        Advancement of Colored People (referred to in this preamble as the 
        ``NAACP''), was shot to death by a White man who was never indicted for 
        the murder;
Whereas Mr. Lewis joined the NAACP in the summer of 1956;
Whereas, in 1958, Mr. Lewis wrote a letter to Dr. King, who responded with a 
        round trip bus ticket for Mr. Lewis to visit Montgomery, Alabama, where 
        Mr. Lewis and Dr. King met at Reverend Ralph David Abernathy's First 
        Baptist Church;
Whereas, while a student at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in 
        Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. Lewis--

    (1) was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating 
Committee (referred to in this preamble as the ``SNCC''); and

    (2) organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, pushing Nashville 
to become the first major city in the South to begin the desegregation of 
public facilities;

Whereas Mr. Lewis graduated from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in 
        1961, and was subsequently ordained as a Baptist minister;
Whereas, in 1961, Mr. Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders, who 
        challenged segregated interstate travel throughout the South;
Whereas, at just 23 years old, Mr. Lewis helped organize the 1964 March on 
        Washington, at which--

    (1) Dr. King gave his famous ``I Have a Dream'' speech; and

    (2) Mr. Lewis vowed, in his address at the Lincoln Memorial, to 
``splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them back 
together in the image of God and democracy'';

Whereas Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated hotels, 
        restrooms, swimming pools, and public parks for which he was brutally 
        beaten, left unconscious in his own blood, and arrested 40 times, 
        spending countless nights in county jails and 37 days in Parchman 
        Penitentiary;
Whereas, in 1963, as Chair of the SNCC, Mr. Lewis moved to Atlanta, Georgia;
Whereas, on March 7, 1965, on what would become known as ``Bloody Sunday'', Mr. 
        Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators demanding their right to vote 
        across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Mr. Lewis, who 
        suffered a fractured skull, and other demonstrators were met with 
        violence and police brutality;
Whereas, after televised images of the Bloody Sunday violence in Selma shocked 
        the conscience of the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson called 
        for equal voting rights legislation before a joint session of Congress, 
        which evolved into his signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 
        U.S.C. 10301 et seq.) on August 6, 1965;
Whereas, on December 21, 1968, Mr. Lewis married the love of his life, Lillian 
        Miles, who was his best friend, closest ally, and most steadfast 
        supporter until her death on December 31, 2012, the 45th anniversary of 
        their meeting;
Whereas, in 1970, Mr. Lewis became director of the Voter Education Project, 
        which added nearly 4,000,000 minority voters to the voter rolls and 
        changed the political landscape of the United States forever;
Whereas, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Mr. Lewis to direct more than 
        250,000 volunteers of ACTION, which was then a Federal volunteer agency;
Whereas, in 1981, Mr. Lewis won elected office for the first time as an at-large 
        Councilman on the Atlanta City Council, where he was a powerful advocate 
        for ethics and neighborhood preservation, including saving from 
        destruction the historic neighborhoods of the Old Fourth Ward, Inman 
        Park, Candler Park, and Druid Hills;
Whereas, in 1982, Mr. Lewis worked with the American Jewish Committee to found 
        the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition, part of his decades-long friendship 
        and alliance with the Jewish community of Georgia, which later led to 
        the establishment of the Congressional Black-Jewish caucus;
Whereas, in 1986, Mr. Lewis became the second African American to represent 
        Georgia in Congress since Reconstruction;
Whereas Mr. Lewis fought for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Public 
        Law 102-166; 105 Stat. 1071), which was signed into law by President 
        George H.W. Bush;
Whereas, in 2001, Mr. Lewis was awarded the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation 
        Profile in Courage Award for ``his extraordinary courage, leadership and 
        commitment to civil rights'';
Whereas Mr. Lewis led the effort to build what is now known as the Sam Nunn 
        Atlanta Federal Center, one of the largest Federal buildings in the 
        United States;
Whereas, in 2003, Mr. Lewis secured authorization for construction of the 
        National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National 
        Mall in Washington, DC;
Whereas, in 2007, Mr. Lewis introduced the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights 
        Crime Act of 2007 (28 U.S.C. 509 note; Public Law 110-344) to 
        investigate unsolved civil rights crimes, which was signed into law by 
        President George W. Bush in 2008;
Whereas, in 2011, President Barack Obama awarded Mr. Lewis the Presidential 
        Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States;
Whereas Mr. Lewis' colleagues referred to him as the ``conscience of the 
        Congress'' for his--

    (1) relentless pursuit of justice;

    (2) unflinching commitment to building what Dr. King and Mr. Lewis 
referred to as the ``Beloved Community'', a society without poverty, 
racism, or violence; and

    (3) willingness to make what he called ``good trouble, necessary 
trouble'' to confront acts of injustice; and

Whereas, on July 17, 2020, Mr. Lewis died, devastating his family, his staff, 
        the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, and the people of the United 
        States, who united to honor his monumental legacy of hard work and self-
        sacrifice in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all, which 
        culminated in Mr. Lewis lying in state at the United States Capitol 
        before his memorial service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta: Now, 
        therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the Senate--
            (1) honors the life and legacy of John Robert Lewis, an 
        American hero and civil rights leader who--
                    (A) faced brutality and suffered grievous injuries 
                while remaining steadfastly committed to the nonviolent 
                struggle for civil rights;
                    (B) dedicated his life to defending the dignity of 
                all people and building the ``Beloved Community''; and
                    (C) spent more than 3 decades as a Member of 
                Congress defending and strengthening civil rights; and
            (2) commends John Robert Lewis for his towering 
        achievements in the nonviolent struggle for civil rights.
                                 <all>
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