Currents News Staff
Representative John Lewis, a passionate champion of civil rights and long-term Georgia congressman, was remembered July 30 by family, friends, and former presidents.
The 17-term congressman was remembered in a home-going service at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
He was honored by the youngest of friends and former presidents from both sides of the political aisle.
“John Lewis was my hero and my friend,” said 12-year-old Tybre Faw, who had met Lewis in 2018. “Let’s honor him by getting in good trouble.”
“He always thought of others, he always believed in preaching the Gospel in word and in deed, and insisting that hate and fear had to be answered with love and hope,” added former president George W. Bush.
“John Lewis was many things, but he was a man, a friend and sunshine in a storm,” said former president Bill Clinton, “a friend who would walk the stony roads that he asked you to walk.”
“Some day when we do finish that long journey towards freedom,” said former president Barack Obama, “when we do form a more perfect union, whether it’s years from now or decades or even if it takes another two centuries, John Lewis will be a founding father of that fuller, fairer, better America.”
In return, John Lewis penned his own farewell to America.
“In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way,” he wrote. “Now, it is your turn to let freedom ring.”