Born on February 21, 1940, John Lewis was raised on rural Pike County land by his parents, sharecroppers Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis. In December 1957, while a student at American Baptist College in Nashville, he applied for admission to the all-white Troy State College but was denied because of segregation. He then wrote to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who met with him in Montgomery and encouraged him to become more active in the civil rights movement. Returning to Nashville, Lewis graduated from American Baptist and entered Fisk University. As a college student, he organized a series of sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and coined his motto on an activist's obligation to pursue “good trouble, necessary trouble.” In 1961 he participated in the Freedom Rides challenging segregation at southern bus terminals. Although he endured numerous physical assaults throughout the 1960s, he maintained his belief in nonviolence. In 1963, Lewis helped found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the student arm of King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As president of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he assisted in planning the August 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and was the youngest speaker at that historic event. On March 7, 1965, Lewis and Hosea Williams led more than 500 activists from Selma toward Montgomery to raise awareness of persistent inequality at the ballot box. At the foot of Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge, sheriff's deputies and Alabama State Troopers assembled on the order of Gov. George C. Wallace assaulted the peaceful crowd with nightsticks, bullwhips, and tear gas, badly injuring dozens of participants, including Lewis, who suffered a skull fracture. Photographs and footage of the attack, known as Bloody Sunday, prompted federal protection for the marchers on their route to Alabama’s Capitol and led to congressional passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lewis continued his civil rights work after the Selma march, winning a seat on the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and election in 1986 to represent Georgia's Fifth Congressional District, a position he held until his death on July 17, 2020. During his tenure in Washington, Congressman Lewis advocated equality, nonviolence, and justice, supported African American history initiatives, and was remembered by fellow lawmakers as the conscience of the Congress.