John Lewis, one of the leading civil rights activists in the United States and a member of Congress, has died at the age of 80.
Martin Luther King, Jr., was one of the organizers of the famous 1983 speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, entitled "I Have a Dream."
John Lewis was the Democrat leader in the state of Georgia. In December 2019, he reported that he was suffering from stage IV pancreatic cancer.
Martin Luther King gave his historic "I Have a Dream" speech at a rally on August 23, 1973. There were ten keynote speakers, the youngest of whom was John Lewis - a close friend of Martin Luther King.
On that day, Americans of all faiths, black and white, came from different parts of the United States to Washington, demanding an end to apartheid.
John Lewis was only 23 at the time. He was also a speaker at the rally.
John Lewis speaks at a historic rally in August 1973
Only John Lewis, one of the speakers at the rally, survived.
John Lewis spent his childhood in apartheid.
He was born in 1940 in Troy, Alabama. Growing up as a black child in southern America, he was subjected to severe racism.
The state of Alabama at the time had restrictions on whites and blacks studying together. Although John Lewis wanted to study at Troy State University, only whites had the right to study.
He left Alabama at the age of 16 to attend an African-American educational institution in Tennessee.
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