HR0807 103RD GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0807 LRB103 40754 LAW 73577 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, John Robert Lewis was born to Willie Mae (Carter) and Eddie Lewis near Troy, Alabama on February 21, 1940; as a child, he was affectionately known as "Preacher" and insisted on attending school daily, defying his parents' instructions to work the family farm, establishing his lifelong commitment to education and enlightenment; and

WHEREAS, As a high school student, John Lewis intensely followed the progress of the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 and 1956; inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he preached his first public sermon, entitled "A Praying Mother", at Macedonia Baptist Church in Troy, Alabama on February 16, 1956; later that year, he joined the NAACP; and

WHEREAS, While a student at the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, John Lewis was a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), organizing sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and pushing Nashville to become the first major city in the South to begin the desegregation of public facilities; after graduating in 1961, he was subsequently ordained as a Baptist minister; and

WHEREAS, In 1961, John Lewis became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders, challenging segregated interstate travel throughout the South; two years later, at just 23 years old, he helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, where he witnessed Dr. King deliver his famous "I Have a Dream" speech; that same year, as chair of the SNCC, he proceeded to move to Atlanta, Georgia; and

WHEREAS, John Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated hotels, restrooms, swimming pools, and public parks, for which he was brutally beaten, left unconscious in his own blood, and arrested 40 times, spending countless nights in county jails and 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary; and

WHEREAS, On March 7, 1965, on what would become known as Bloody Sunday, John Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators who were demanding their right to vote while marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama; he and demonstrators were met with violence and police brutality, and he suffered a fractured skull; and

WHEREAS, After televised images of the Bloody Sunday violence in Selma shocked the conscience of the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for equal voting rights legislation before a joint session of Congress, which evolved into his signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq.) on August 6, 1965; and

WHEREAS, John Lewis married Lillian Miles on December 21, 1968, and she was his best friend, closest ally, and most steadfast supporter until her death on December 31, 2012; and

WHEREAS, In 1970, John Lewis became director of the Voter Education Project, which added nearly 4,000,000 minority voters to the voter rolls, changing the political landscape of the United States forever; and

WHEREAS, In 1977, John Lewis was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, which was then a federal volunteer agency; and

WHEREAS, In 1981, John Lewis won elected office for the first time as an at-large councilman on the Atlanta City Council, where he was a powerful advocate for ethics and neighborhood preservation; and

WHEREAS, In 1982, John Lewis worked with the American Jewish Committee to found the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition, part of his decades-long friendship and alliance with the Jewish community of Georgia, which later led to the establishment of the Congressional Black-Jewish caucus; and

WHEREAS, In 1986, John Lewis became the second African American to represent Georgia in the United States Congress since Reconstruction, ultimately serving in Congress for over three decades; during his tenure, he fought for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 (Public Law 102-166; 105 Stat. 1071), which was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, secured authorization for construction of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in 2003, and introduced the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 (28 U.S.C. 509 note; Public Law 110-344) to investigate unsolved civil rights crimes, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush in 2008; and

WHEREAS, John Lewis was the recipient of a number of accolades, including being awarded the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Profile in Courage Award for his extraordinary courage, leadership, and commitment to civil rights in 2001 and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, by President Barack Obama in 2011; and

WHEREAS, On July 17, 2020, John Lewis passed away, devastating his family, his staff, the City of Atlanta, the State of Georgia, and the people of the United States, who united to honor his monumental legacy of hard work and self-sacrifice in the pursuit of liberty and justice for all; and

WHEREAS, John Lewis was known as the "conscience of the Congress" for his relentless pursuit of justice, his unflinching commitment to building a society without poverty, racism, or violence, and his willingness to make what he called "good trouble, necessary trouble" to confront acts of injustice; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE HUNDRED THIRD GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we declare February 21, 2024 as John Lewis Day in the State of Illinois to honor the life and legacy of American hero and civil rights leader John Robert Lewis.