Rep. John Lewis, who died on July 17 of pancreatic cancer at age 80, was laid to rest at a funeral in Atlanta on Thursday. He was known as the "conscious of Congress," supporting policies on racial justice, LGBT rights, and gun control during his tenure as a congressperson from Georgia, a position he had held since 1986.
Prior to joining Congress, Lewis was an integral part of the Civil Rights Movement as a cofounder of the SNCC, one of the original freedom riders, and the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963.
"Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble," Lewis said in an essay for the New York Times shortly before his death.
Lewis' funeral procession began in Selma, Alabama, and continued through Washington, DC, and Atlanta. Mourners gathered in long lines in the heat to see him lie in state at the state capitol buildings in Alabama and Georgia. Lewis is the first Black lawmaker to lie in state at the US Capitol Rotunda in Washington, where members of Congress and the public came to say goodbye.