Haiku Jumble: John Lewis

Man of bold actions

wants us to march to freedom.

Strength matched stubbornness.

(Photo by Wikipedia.com)

20 Fun Facts on John Lewis:

John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama to sharecroppers, Mae and Eddie Lewis.
An aspiring preacher as a youngin, he practiced preaching to his chickens outside on the farm.
He was a mentee to Martin Luther King and joined him in the Montgomery Bus Boycott and also became one of the 6 major leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.
He was one of the leaders who ended legalized segregation of whites and blacks within the United States in the year 1965. Segregation was instated by the Jim Crow Laws beginning in the 1870s.
An ordained Baptist minister after graduating from American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee.
He helped organize sit-ins at segregated lunch counters as nonviolent protests.
He was a member of the Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity.
In 1961, he became one of the thirteen Freedom Riders, a group of Civil Rights activists riding the bus on interstates united as black and white people of color into the segregated South.
At the age of 21, he was the first of the Freedom Riders to be assaulted at Rock Hill, South Carolina as he held his stance of being a nonviolent activist.
He led three marches along the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma to Montgomery, Alabama with the first one beginning on March 7, 1965.
"Bloody Sunday" was the headliner of the violent attacks that interrupted the march after the crowd led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams passed the bridge. The result of this tragic event was rushed to change after what was witnessed in passing the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
In New York City, he worked as Director of the Field Foundation in 1966.
In 1970, he became the director of the Voting Education Project.
He joined the House of Congress in 1987 representing the state of Georgia while still fighting for people's rights. He was re-elected 16 times.
He was surprised and ecstatic when the first African American, Barack Obama, was elected President in 2008 after speaking at the Democratic Convention.
In 1026, his third book in his series March: Book Three was the first graphic novel to win the National Book Award.
He organized a sit-in at Congress (40 Democrats) ten days later after a mass shooting on June 12, 2016, erupted in Orlando, Florida in an effort to end gun violence.
After the 2016 election, John Lewis spoke out against President Trump calling him an "illegitimate President".
At the age of 80, Lewis was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer in December 2019 and then passed away the following year on July 17, 2020.
He received many awards: