Bezos made a $100 million donation to the Obama Foundation, the largest individual donation in the organization's history.
Girls Opportunity Alliance and My Brother's Keeper are two youth organizations that will be funded by the Amazon founder's unrestricted donation. The plaza at the Obama Presidential Center on Chicago's South Side was requested to be named after John Lewis by Bezos.
"John Lewis is a great American leader and a man of extraordinary decency and courage, and I can't think of a more fitting person to honor with this gift," Bezos said in a press release.
The first report about Bezos' donation was on the news site Puck.
The Bezos Foundation decided to name the plaza after Lewis, not Bezos, in order to shift away from giving naming rights to wealthy donors. The public spaces at the foundation's Chicago hub will be named after extraordinary change agents, according to the press release.
Over the past several months, a number of high-profile giving has taken place. He gave $100 million each to chef Jose Andres and activist Van Jones immediately after his spaceflight. In July, Bezos donated $200 million to the Smithsonian and pledged $10 billion to fight climate change by 2020.
Since leaving the helm of Amazon earlier this year, Bezos has been working to carve out his legacy and has increased his charitable giving at the same time. He and his girlfriend, Lauren, were very visible at the United Nation's climate summit last month, and his other company, Blue Origin, has made two high-profile spaceflights this year alone.
