John Lewis was a civil rights leader, notoriously one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), was elected in 1986 to the U.S. Congress, and the current U.S. Representative for Georgia’s fifth congressional district. He became involved in the Civil Rights Movement after Martin Luther King Jr. replied to his handwritten with a bus ticket to Montgomery, Alabama. Lewis has been heavily involved in civil rights throughout his career, including being named as one of the “Big Six” leaders of the March on Washington.
Lewis was one of the keynote speakers at the March on Washington in which he condemned institutional segregation, the violence in response of the Movement, and criticized lack of action from the federal government. Lewis, along with the other keynote speakers, met with President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office following the March to forge relations with the administration. Alongside Hosea Williams, he also led the 600 marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge into the unknown attack by hundreds of armed police officers establishing the infamous “Bloody Sunday” and would leave with a cracked skull. Lewis is currently renowned for his work in applying his experiences and philosophy of nonviolence to contemporary issues such as LGBT rights and current academic programs.
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In this lesson, students will examine what factors influenced the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party and what impact the two organizations had on the movement for Black liberation.
Learn how students were the driving force behind much of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s through music, interviews, and more.
In this lesson, students will examine what factors influenced the creation of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party and what impact the two organizations had on the movement for Black liberation.
