Alveda King, the niece of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., is remembering the late John Lewis not only for his courage in his civil rights activism but for his humility.
That’s one quality young people of today could really use today, she said.
“Dad would always say it’s the young people — it’s the students — that are going to have to carry this movement,” King said on Fox News’s Outnumbered. “John was right there in the heart. Our family has known Congressman Lewis for five decades. Not just the time he was in Congress but during those tumultuous days. John was always very, very focused, nonviolent, humble, peaceful, and all of that is very important. And the young people of today could learn a lot from the character and the standards that John Lewis lived by.”
Lewis was recognized for his historic work toward the progress of civil rights and later became known as the “conscience of Congress.” Throughout his lifetime, Lewis was arrested more than 40 times while fighting for civil rights.
One of his most notable experiences was being a part of “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 to demand an end to voting restrictions against black citizens. Lewis was beaten along with other protesters that day on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama.
On Sunday, Lewis’s body was brought across the bridge for a final farewell where rose petals were laid in honor of him.
King said she and Lewis didn’t always agree politically and she differed on some things through the perspective of her faith but they agreed on the “universal” aspects of life.
“[Lewis] was a humble man, a peaceful man, and, yet, a very strong and courageous man, and we saw that,” she said. “So, you know, we actually had different politics and different philosophies. I’m an evangelist with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He was dealing with social justice and social gospel. However, some things are universal. … That’s faith, love, courage, and that universal force, if its God-directed, then it makes the strongest force possible. Love. Definitely love.”
Lewis died at age 80 earlier this month after a fight against stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He will become the first black person to lie in state at the U.S. Capitol on Monday.
