The Honorable John Lewis, U. S. Representative for the Fifth Congressional District of Georgia, will deliver the 2003-04 Harper Fellowship Lecture on Monday, September 20, 2004, at 4:30 p.m., in Room 127. Lewis will talk about "Political Activism and Civil Rights." The talk is free and open to the public.
At an early age, John Lewis became a recognized leader in the Civil Rights Movement and was described as one of the "Big Six" leaders of the Movement (along with Whitney Young, A. Phillip Randolph, James Farmer, Roy Wilkins and Martin Luther King, Jr.). In 1963, at the age of 23, as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was one of the planners and a keynote speaker at the historic "March on Washington." In 1965, along with fellow activist Hosea Williams, Lewis led over 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, before Alabama state troopers attacked the marchers in a confrontation that became known as "Bloody Sunday." That fateful march and a subsequent march between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 1986 he was elected to Congress, representing Georgia's Fifth Congressional District, which includes Atlanta. He is currently serving his ninth term in office. He is the author (with Michael D'Orso) of Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998), an account of this nation's civil rights movement.
"John Lewis is a man of great courage and conviction," said YLS Dean Harold Hongju Koh. "He is a powerful speaker and his talk promises to be lively and moving."
Lewis holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University and is a graduate of the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee. He has been awarded numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities throughout the United States. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-violent Peace Prize, the John F. Kennedy "Profile in Courage Award" for lifetime achievement, and the Eleanor Roosevelt Award for his contributions to human rights.