In Tributes, John Lewis Remembered As An American Hero
Lawmakers from across the political spectrum remembered Rep. John Lewis as a man who embodied the best of American ideals and a stalwart champion for civil rights.
Tributes poured in from across the nation on Saturday for John Lewis, the civil rights icon who died Friday at the age of 80.
Lewis rose to prominence as a young civil rights activist who helped lead the 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. Lewis was beaten so badly by law enforcement that he was hospitalized. "Bloody Sunday," as it came to be known, helped spur lawmakers to pass the Voting Rights Act later that year.
Lewis would go on to serve as a Democratic congressman for the state of Georgia for more than 30 years, from the late 1980s
