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 - Unauthorized use is prohibited. Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in rural Alabama. 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 ...

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.

This was a revolutionary 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”). Inspired by this idea of the social gospel, Lewis began preaching in local churches when he was 15 years old. Upon graduating from high school, Lewis enrolled in the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville.

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.)

October 27, 2010 - 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 Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, in Troy, Alabama, one of 10 children of Eddie and Willie Mae Lewis. To escape the exploitative system of sharecropping prevalent across the South, his parents saved enough money to purchase a 110-acre ...

July 18, 2020 - He has been called “the conscience ... chamber.” · He was born the son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama....

October 5, 2023 - Lewis remained at the vanguard of the civil rights movement until his death at the age of 80. Born on February 21, 1940, in Pike County, John Lewis was one of ten children of sharecroppers Eddie and Willie Mae Carter Lewis.

Congressman John Lewis has dedicated his life to the non-violent struggle for social change since his days as a seminary student in Tennessee. He helped establish the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960 and became a Freedom Rider in 1961, traveling through the South with ...

In his powerful graphic novel memoir March, Lewis recalled growing up on a farm and honing his skills as a young orator by preaching to the family chickens.5 School—and particularly the access to the outside world provided by books, newspapers, ...

February 19, 2025 - John Robert Lewis was from Troy, Alabama, the son of a sharecropper family. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama. At an early age, Lewis developed an unwavering commitment to the American ...

July 18, 2020 - Learn why John Lewis got the name The boy from Troy. And learn about his Troy, Alabama roots and family. A visit to his family farm near Troy, Alabama, where he spent his childhood preaching to the chickens he cared for, talking his way out ...

John Lewis was born on February 21, 1940. He grew up outside of Troy, Alabama. Lewis’s parents worked as sharecroppers, and he helped on the farm from a young age. As a Black American, Lewis also faced racial discrimination from an early age.

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.

3 days ago - One of his challengers in the House primary election set up campaign headquarters inside the building that served as Obama's Georgia office. In October 2008, Lewis issued a statement criticizing the presidential campaign of John McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin and accusing them of "sowing ...

September 18, 2025 - He courageously put his life on ... in 1940. He encountered the ugliness and brutality of racism while participating in sit-ins as a student at Fisk University in...

April 5, 2022 - 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.

February 16, 2024 - He was born the son of sharecroppers on February 21, 1940, outside of Troy, Alabama. He grew up on his family’s farm and attended segregated public schools in Pike County, Alabama.

October 19, 2020 - There was perhaps no single figure whose own life and career embodied the promise, success, and continued challenges of civil rights for Black Americans than John Lewis. Born in 1940 in Alabama, Lewis was at the forefront of the Civil Rights ...