'Good Trouble' events to honor Congressman John Lewis, one year after his death
ATLANTA - July 17 marks one year since civil rights leader and long-time U.S. Congressman John Lewis died.
Lewis passed away at the age of 80 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.
On Saturday morning, the U.S. Navy christened the USNS John Lewis in San Diego in honor of Rep. Lewis. According to officials, The John Lewis is 746 feet long and will include a complement of about 100 civilian mariners.
Rep. Nikema Williams, who currently holds Lewis' former seat serving Georgia's 5th congressional district, was a part of the delegation in California.
Beginning at 7 p.m. the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples' Agenda, Georgia Black Women’s Roundtable Clayton County, and other coalition members will gather for a candlelight vigil to honor the life and legacy of the late civil rights icon at Rodney Cook, Sr. Peace Park on Joseph E. Boone Boulevard.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday both marked the one-year anniversary of U.S. Rep. John Lewis’s death by urging Congress to enact laws to protect voting rights. They said doing so would honor the legacy of the civil rights icon.
Biden said he often reflects on the last conversation he and his wife, Jill, had with Lewis, days before the Georgia congressman died.
"Instead of answering our concerns for him, he asked us to remain focused on the unfinished work — his life’s work — of healing and uniting this nation," Biden said in a statement.
The president said the unfinished work includes "building an economy that respects the dignity of working people with good jobs and good wages" and "ensuring equal justice under law is real in practice and not just a promise etched in stone."
Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) is photographed in his offices in the Canon House office building on March 17, 2009. (Jeff Hutchens/Getty Images)
"Perhaps most of all, it means continuing the cause that John was willing to give his life for, protecting the sacred right to vote," Biden said. "Not since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s have we seen such unrelenting attacks on voting rights and the integrity of our elections."
UNITED STATES - MAY 10: Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., walks down the House steps at the Capitol after the last votes of the week on Friday, May 10, 2019. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
"Congressman Lewis fought tirelessly for our country’s highest ideals: freedom and justice for all, and for the right of every American to make their voice heard at the ballot box," Vice President Kamala Harris said.
Georgia's U.S. Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock remembered Lewis as a man who he described as a "national hero."
"A year ago we lost a national hero, and I lost a friend and parishioner. John Lewis spent his life fighting to ensure our country lived up to its founding creed, and I’m so honored for the opportunity to carry on his legacy," Sen. Warnock wrote on Twitter Saturday morning.
In a statement, Warnock spoke about their personal relationship: "I was honored to serve as John Lewis’s pastor. But make no mistake, I was the pastor, but he was the mentor. He inspired me not only by his words, but most importantly, by his example."
The city of Atlanta's official Twitter page wrote, "Atlanta still mourns the loss of one of our most beloved heroes, but the legacy of Congressman John Lewis lives on in each of us."
In the United States Congress, members of the Georgia delegation, from both chambers and both sides of the aisle, united to memorialize Congressman John Lewis on the first anniversary of his death.
"We still feel his presence, and those values that he represented, with us today," Sen. Jon Ossoff, who considers John Lewis a mentor, said.
"John Lewis was one of those unique individuals who not only dedicated his life to public service, but he continued to fight for the things that he believed in up to the very last moment that he was with us here on earth," District 11 Rep. Barry Loudermilk said.
Lewis was the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had the greatest impact on the movement.
Lewis was best known for leading some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Alabama state troopers beat Lewis and other activists who were marching for voting rights that day.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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