John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama. He grew up on his family’s farm, where his parents were sharecroppers. (Sharecroppers farm a piece of land owned by someone else.)

Explore how John went from being a young farm boy to a famous activist, politician, and leader. Independent reading―This John Lewis biography is broken down into short chapters and simple language so kids 6 to 9 can read and learn on their own.

3 days ago - 978-1-58430-250-6. A biography of John Lewis, one of the "Big Six" leaders who were chairman of activist groups organizing the 1963 March on Washington, focusing on his involvement in Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, and the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the 1965 Selma to ...

January 24, 2023 - His parents were sharecroppers who worked on a farm picking cotton for landowners. As a young boy, Lewis also picked cotton and did other farm duties with his family. It was hard work, but he enjoyed being with the chickens. Lewis wanted to be a pastor, so he would preach to his feathered flock in the chicken coop while tending to the hens and counting their eggs.

October 27, 2010 - Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. ... John Lewis Civil rights leader and U.S. congressman John Lewis, 2009.

Explore how John went from being a young farm boy to a famous activist, politician, and leader.Independent reading―This John Lewis biography is broken down into short chapters and simple language so kids 6 to 9 can read and learn on their ...

John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama. The son of sharecroppers, he attended segregated schools (meaning that Black students could not go to the same schools as white students).

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.

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.

Recommended for kids ages 6-10. ... This picture book biography of John Lewis focuses on his boyhood and the role that community and faith played in his development as a leader.

Lewis was first exposed to King ... moment for Lewis who thought of King as a “Moses” of his people; one who used “organized religion and the emotionalism within the Negro church as an instrument, as a vehicle, toward freedom” (Allen, “John Lewis”...

January 12, 2021 - John Robert Lewis was born outside of Troy, Alabama, on February 21, 1940. Lewis had a happy childhood — though he needed to work hard to assist his sharecropper parents — but he chafed against the unfairness of segregation.

Lewis, who as chairman of the Student ... Washington.[1] ... John Lewis was born in 1940 in Troy, Alabama to Eddie Lewis and Willie Mae Lewis (née Carter), who were sharecroppers in Pike County, Alabama.[2][3][4][5] Sharecroppers were ...

During his more than three decades ... his roots as an activist. John Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, one of 10 children of Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis....

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. During the late 1960s through the 1980s, Lewis devoted his time to various community organizing and voter registration efforts in order to secure the legal Civil Rights victories of the 1960s and continue to advocate for civil rights.

April 5, 2022 - Lewis, who was the youngest speaker at the original march, urged the audience to continue marching on behalf of equality. “Fifty years later, we cannot wait, we cannot be patient,” he said. “We want our jobs and we want our freedom now…we cannot give up. We cannot give out.” (M. Reynolds) You’ve seen great changes in your lifetime. What was it like growing up in rural Alabama when you were a kid in the 1940s and ’50s? John Lewis: It was very hard and very difficult growing up in rural Alabama during the ’40s and the ’50s.