HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS

On 2026-07-20, Representative Lucy McBath (D-GA-6) delivered a floor speech titled "HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS" in the House.

HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS

Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 118 (Monday, July 20, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 118 (Monday, July 20, 2026)] [House] [Pages H4675-H4679] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] HONORING THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF CONGRESSMAN JOHN LEWIS (Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Ms. McClellan of Virginia was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.) General Leave Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include any extraneous material on the subject of this Special Order. The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentlewoman from Virginia? There was no objection. Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, this week's Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour is in honor of the life and legacy of civil rights leader and our former colleague, Congressman John R. Lewis, as we mark the sixth anniversary of his passing last week. Congressman Lewis led our community fearlessly through many pivotal moments in our Nation's history. From his time as a student organizer to marching in Montgomery alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., up until the end of his career in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman Lewis was a beacon of light in our darkest times. His legacy continues to inspire not only this caucus but our country, serving as a blueprint for protecting and expanding democracy, defending the right to vote, advancing the unfinished work of justice and equal representation, the unfinished work of making liberty and justice for all apply to all. The Supreme Court's recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais underscores the enduring importance of safeguarding the Black vote. The Trump administration's efforts to prioritize the disenfranchisement of our communities and its efforts to roll back progress made in making equality apply to all [[Page H4676]] galvanizes the Congressional Black Caucus to double down and further his life's legacy. Today, we commemorate the memory of Congressman John Lewis while we continue to hold the line against ongoing attacks to our right to representation. I want to reflect on what John Lewis meant to me. Born in 1972, I am the first generation, but hopefully not the last, to benefit from him literally putting his life on the line to extend the promises of our founding documents to all of us. I studied his history, and I was particularly inspired by how at a young age as a college student, John Lewis put his faith into action. He said in an op-ed he wrote toward the end of his life that Emmett Till was his George Floyd. When Emmett Till was killed at age 14, John Lewis was only 15 years old. He said: ``I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars. ``Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters, and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.'' At 15 years old, John Lewis decided to do something about it. As a college student, he participated in the national sit-in, a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, where he and his fellow students targeted segregated lunch counters in downtown Nashville where my father was from. They were arrested, beaten, and jailed. My grandfather actually served as one of the members of the legal team to those students. This act of peaceful protest in the face of violent reaction led to the desegregation of the city stores in Nashville. I will never forget watching a video of Congressman Lewis sitting at the lunch counter, in an exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of African American History, listening in the headsets to the recording of what the Greensboro Four heard at the Woolworth counter. As it triggered his own memory, he wept. {time} 1950 In May of 1961, Congressman Lewis, then a student, was severely beaten by a White mob at a Greyhound bus terminal in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the Freedom Rides. Fifty years later, one of his attackers, Elwin Wilson, came to Washington to ask for his forgiveness. Together, in a very emotional meeting in his office, they listened to another recording of the mob that beat John Lewis nearly to death that day. John Lewis forgave him. In August of 1963, he was the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, representing one of the Big Six civil rights group. Then, in March of 1965, he led another March, in Selma, where he was again beaten, along with 600 other peaceful protesters walking across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, who were brutally attacked by State troopers. Each of these actions galvanized change: the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and more. For me, the most memorable moment I got to witness: In 2019, he came to Richmond. He was the keynote speaker at a ceremony to rename the Boulevard after tennis great, Arthur Ashe. After his speech, I had the privilege of escorting him to an exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. In a former Confederate chapel, the exhibit included a recording of the speech that he gave in response when he opposed the impeachment of President Clinton. I sat in a pew next to John Lewis and watched him as he listened to that speech for the first time since he gave it. What stuck out to me were the following words: ``When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something. Our children and their children will ask us, What did you do? What did you say? For some, this vote may be hard, but we have a mission and a mandate to be on the right side of history.'' I watched with tears in my eyes as he listened and wept. He said that was the first time he had heard it but that the words were still true. Mr. Speaker, we take tough votes here. We take votes that sometimes are the difference between life and death. We take votes to try to stop the rollback of progress. We take votes to make ``liberty and justice for all'' apply to all. For me, my North Star are the words I just read from John Lewis: When you see something that is not right, say something. There is a lot I see that is not right. I see a President, in the name of a war on wokeness, dismantling the very civil rights protections that allowed me to be here. I see a President and his congressional enablers dismantling the right to vote, putting on the floor not once, not twice, not three times--at least four times a modern day poll tax that makes a mockery of the Voting Rights Act and the 15th Amendment that it was intended to enforce. I see a Secretary of Defense who is systematically firing very qualified, very distinguished, decorated generals and leaders, admirals, because they are Black or women. He thinks that, because of that, they must only be there because of DEI. I see that that is wrong, and I am saying something. I will continue to say something because that is what John Lewis would have me do. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Clarke), the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Ms. CLARKE of New York. Mr. Speaker, I am Representative D. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus for the 119th Session of Congress, proudly representing New York's Ninth Congressional District in central and southwest Brooklyn. I thank my dear colleague Congresswoman Jennifer McClellan for anchoring this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour and really setting the table for a conversation that we are having this evening. I rise tonight with my colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus to honor the life and legacy of our dear friend and former colleague, the conscience of this Congress, Congressman John Lewis. For more than 30 years in the United States House of Representatives and over the course of his life, Congressman John Lewis never stopped fighting for justice, equality, and the right to vote. Today, the very ideals that Congressman Lewis spent his life fighting to protect are under sustained and unprecedented attack. As we speak, extremist Republicans at the local, State, and national levels are using every tactic in their arsenal to disenfranchise Black and minority communities. To date, hundreds of bills to restrict voting access have been introduced in States around the country with the aim of closing polling locations, curbing early voting and mail-in ballots, and imposing stricter national voter ID requirements. Right now Republicans in the Congress are fighting to jam through voter suppression legislation, like the so-called SAVE America Act and the Voter ID Act, ushering in a national ID program. In the wake of the Callais decision, Black political power and representation has come under direct assault, with Republican-led legislatures and Governors moving to redraw congressional maps across the south ahead of the November election in a brazen effort to dilute Black voting strength and reverse decades of hard-fought civil rights progress secured through the Voting Rights Act. With these unprecedented assaults on our voting rights and the slow erosion of our constitutional and Democratic norms, each of us has a moral responsibility to speak out and act out as Congressman J