Having to attend segregated schools that lacked the funding and resources of white schools, ride in broken-down school buses on unpaved roads while seeing white children ride in new school buses on paved roads, have a shorter school year than white children, frequently miss school because of the effects of poor weather on unpaved roads and to help his parents sharecrop while white children did not, use “colored” water fountains and bathrooms, exude deference in every interaction with whites, look at a monument of John Wilkes Booth whenever he went to Troy, and not eat, drink, or sit in certain establishments contributed to this growth. Being denied access to Troy’s public library did as well. All of these experiences were important in Lewis’ development, but there were four events that stand out above the rest.

January 24, 2023 - Growing up in the South during a time when Black people did not have the same rights as white people, John Lewis faced racial discrimination—and he did not like it. He fought for equality during the civil rights movement, marching with Dr.

January 12, 2021 - Lewis had a happy childhood — though he needed to work hard to assist his sharecropper parents — but he chafed against the unfairness of segregation. He was particularly disappointed when the Supreme Court ruling in 1954's Brown v.

October 22, 2025 - Dissuaded from doing so by his parents, Lewis instead was educated in Nashville at the American Baptist Theological Institute and Fisk University (B.A. in religion and philosophy, 1967). ... John LewisThe arrest of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) chairman John Lewis following a civil rights demonstration in Nashville, April 29, 1964.(more)

April 5, 2022 - John Lewis was born to a family of sharecroppers outside of Troy, Alabama, at a time when African Americans in the South were subjected to a humiliating segregation in education and all public facilities, and were effectively prevented from ...

July 18, 2020 - As a student at Fisk University, John Lewis organized sit-in demonstrations at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1961, he volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South.

2 days ago - John Robert Lewis was born near Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940, the third of ten children of Willie Mae (née Carter) and Eddie Lewis. His parents were sharecroppers in rural Pike County, Alabama, of which Troy was the county seat.

February 4, 2025 - Georgia Congressman John R. Lewis was an activist, teacher, and the heartbeat of the Civil Rights Movement. Congressman Lewis fought tirelessly for social justice and against racial discrimination. He was a man whose entire life compelled us to be better human beings and be better as a society.

In 1965, Lewis became well-known for his important role in the Selma to Montgomery marches. ... John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama. He was the third of ten children.

May 21, 2025 - James Lawson mentored a group of Black college students in the philosophy and tactics of nonviolent direct action. “Those Tuesday nights became the focus of my life,” recalled Lewis, who’d since childhood in rural Alabama sought a way ...

To help make ends meet, Lewis’s father also drove a school bus, and his mother was a domestic worker. John Lewis attended segregated public schools in Alabama, and as a boy he felt called to ministry, aspiring to emulate the career of Dr.

Lewis’ first direct encounter with King occurred in the summer of 1958, when he traveled to Montgomery to seek King’s help in suing to transfer to Troy State University, an all-white institution closer to his home. Lewis met with King, Ralph Abernathy, and Fred Gray at Abernathy’s First Baptist Church, and they decided they would contribute their financial and legal assistance to “the boy from Troy,” as King called him (Lewis, 68).

January 22, 2021 - Few individuals in the history of the American civil rights movement cast as long a shadow as Representative John Lewis (1940–2020). Born in rural Alabama as the son of sharecroppers, Lewis first gained fame (at least in his hometown newspaper) ...

1 month ago - The son of sharecroppers, Lewis leaned toward activism from an early age. Even before turning 16 years old, Lewis preached a sermon at his family church that made it to his hometown’s newspaper.

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October 19, 2020 - The youngest of the major Civil Rights leaders of the era, Lewis could have been seen addressing the March on Washington before Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” and meeting with President’s Kennedy and Johnson as well as personally facing down threats, arrest, and violence, most famously during the “Bloody Sunday” Selma March in 1965.

July 16, 2025 - Though he ended up not pursuing the litigation, the experience connected Lewis with King and other Black Civil Rights leaders and gave him his nickname, “the boy from Troy." Inspired to 'get in good trouble again:' Black lawmakers salute the legacy of John Lewis

January 9, 2025 - The first full-length biography of civil rights hero and congressman John Lewis A New Yorker “Best Book of 2024” Selection “The perfect book, at ...

April 8, 2024 - Forty years ago, a teenaged boy stepped off a cotton farm in Alabama and into the epicenter of the struggle for civil rights in America, where he has remained to this day, committed still to the nonviolent ideals of his mentor Martin Luther King and the movement they both served.