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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, John Robert Lewis was born to Willie Mae (Carter)
3and Eddie Lewis near Troy, Alabama on February 21, 1940; as a
4child, he was affectionately known as "Preacher" and insisted
5on attending school daily, defying his parents' instructions
6to work the family farm, establishing his lifelong commitment
7to education and enlightenment; and
 
8    WHEREAS, As a high school student, John Lewis intensely
9followed the progress of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955
10and 1956; inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he preached
11his first public sermon, entitled "A Praying Mother", at
12Macedonia Baptist Church in Troy, Alabama on February 16,
131956; later that year, he joined the NAACP; and
 
14    WHEREAS, While a student at the American Baptist
15Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, John Lewis was a
16founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating
17Committee (SNCC), organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch
18counters and pushing Nashville to become the first major city
19in the South to begin the desegregation of public facilities;
20after graduating in 1961, he was subsequently ordained as a
21Baptist minister; and
 
22    WHEREAS, In 1961, John Lewis became one of the 13 original

 

 

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1Freedom Riders, challenging segregated interstate travel
2throughout the South; two years later, at just 23 years old, he
3helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he
4witnessed Dr. King deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech;
5that same year, as chair of the SNCC, he proceeded to move to
6Atlanta, Georgia; and
 
7    WHEREAS, John Lewis led demonstrations against racially
8segregated hotels, restrooms, swimming pools, and public
9parks, for which he was brutally beaten, left unconscious in
10his own blood, and arrested 40 times, spending countless
11nights in county jails and 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary;
12and
 
13    WHEREAS, On March 7, 1965, on what would become known as
14Bloody Sunday, John Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators who
15were demanding their right to vote while marching across the
16Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; he and demonstrators
17were met with violence and police brutality, and he suffered a
18fractured skull; and
 
19    WHEREAS, After televised images of the Bloody Sunday
20violence in Selma shocked the conscience of the United States,
21President Lyndon B. Johnson called for equal voting rights
22legislation before a joint session of Congress, which evolved
23into his signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C.

 

 

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110301 et seq.) on August 6, 1965; and
 
2    WHEREAS, John Lewis married Lillian Miles on December 21,
31968, and she was his best friend, closest ally, and most
4steadfast supporter until her death on December 31, 2012; and
 
5    WHEREAS, In 1970, John Lewis became director of the Voter
6Education Project, which added nearly 4,000,000 minority
7voters to the voter rolls, changing the political landscape of
8the United States forever; and
 
9    WHEREAS, In 1977, John Lewis was appointed by President
10Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION,
11which was then a federal volunteer agency; and
 
12    WHEREAS, In 1981, John Lewis won elected office for the
13first time as an at-large councilman on the Atlanta City
14Council, where he was a powerful advocate for ethics and
15neighborhood preservation; and
 
16    WHEREAS, In 1982, John Lewis worked with the American
17Jewish Committee to found the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition,
18part of his decades-long friendship and alliance with the
19Jewish community of Georgia, which later led to the
20establishment of the Congressional Black-Jewish caucus; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, In 1986, John Lewis became the second African
2American to represent Georgia in the United States Congress
3since Reconstruction, ultimately serving in Congress for over
4three decades; during his tenure, he fought for the passage of
5the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-166; 105 Stat.
61071), which was signed into law by President George H.W.
7Bush, secured authorization for construction of the National
8Museum of African American History and Culture on the National
9Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2003, and introduced the Emmett
10Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 (28 U.S.C. 509
11note; Public Law 110-344) to investigate unsolved civil rights
12crimes, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush
13in 2008; and
 
14    WHEREAS, John Lewis was the recipient of a number of
15accolades, including being awarded the John F. Kennedy Library
16Foundation Profile in Courage Award for his extraordinary
17courage, leadership, and commitment to civil rights in 2001
18and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest
19civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama
20in 2011; and
 
21    WHEREAS, On July 17, 2020, John Lewis passed away,
22devastating his family, his staff, the City of Atlanta, the
23State of Georgia, and the people of the United States, who
24united to honor his monumental legacy of hard work and

 

 

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1self-sacrifice in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all;
2and
 
3    WHEREAS, John Lewis was known as the "conscience of the
4Congress" for his relentless pursuit of justice, his
5unflinching commitment to building a society without poverty,
6racism, or violence, and his willingness to make what he
7called "good trouble, necessary trouble" to confront acts of
8injustice; therefore, be it
 
9    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE
10HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
11we declare February 21, 2024 as John Lewis Day in the State of
12Illinois to honor the life and legacy of American hero and
13civil rights leader John Robert Lewis.