[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 2, 2022)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E95-E96]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JOHN R. LEWIS POST OFFICE BUILDING

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE-

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 1, 2022

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in enthusiastic support of H.R. 
5577, which designates the United States Postal Service facility 
located at 3900 Crown Road Southwest in Atlanta, Georgia, as the ``John 
R. Lewis Post Office Building.''
  As a senior member of this body, a former colleague of the great and 
beloved John Lewis, and as a member of a generation that engaged in 
direct action inspired by his work in the Civil Rights Movement, I am 
proud to vote for H.R. 5577 in this tribute to an American original.
  I thank my colleague, Congresswoman Williams of Georgia, for 
introducing this historic legislation to honor the memory of our dear 
friend and one of the greatest Americans, the beloved Congressman John 
Robert Lewis, who died in July 2020, leaving a big hole in the hearts 
of freedom loving people everywhere.
  To honor John's outstanding contributions to the civil rights 
community in Atlanta and his extraordinary life of service to others, 
it is both fitting and proper to designate the facility of the United 
States Postal Service located at 3900 Crown Road Southwest in Atlanta, 
Georgia, as the ``John R. Lewis Post Office Building.''
  John Lewis was a lifelong warrior for a more just, equitable, fairer, 
and better America, one of the Original Big Six, and a giant of the 
Civil Rights Movement.
  John Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders, who in 1961 
challenged segregated interstate travel in the South.
  He was a founder and early leader of the Student Nonviolent 
Coordinating Committee, which coordinated lunch-counter sit-ins.
  He helped organize and was the last surviving person who addressed 
the multitude at the March on Washington, where Dr. King delivered his 
immortal ``I Have A Dream'' speech on the steps of the Lincoln 
Memorial.
  John Robert Lewis was born on February 21, 1940, the third of ten 
children, to Eddie and Willie Mae (Carter) Lewis near the town of Troy 
on a sharecropping farm owned by a white man.
  John was a child when his parents bought their own farm--110 acres 
for $300.
  He performed farm work, leaving school at harvest time to pick 
cotton, peanuts, and corn.
  John Lewis's family members called him ``Preacher,'' and becoming one 
seemed to be his destiny.
  John often said he drew inspiration by listening to a young minister 
named Martin Luther King on the radio and reading about the 1955-56 
Montgomery bus boycott.
  John Lewis did not just listen to Martin Luther King, Jr., he took 
action to follow his example.
  The first time John Lewis was arrested was in February 1960, he and 
other students demanded service at whites-only lunch counters in 
Nashville, the first prolonged battle of the movement that evolved into 
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
  John Lewis's advocacy was fierce and joyful, as embodied in his 
common refrain to involve oneself in the actions and passions of one's 
time, `to get in the way, make necessary trouble.
  Less than two years after, in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, 
John led over 600 peaceful demonstrators across the Edmund Pettus 
Bridge, in Selma, Alabama, in a march demanding the right to vote.
  That protest was met with violence by Alabama State Troopers, as John 
Lewis was beaten and his skull left bloodied, the horror left bare for 
a nation to see on television.
  That incident, forever remembered as Bloody Sunday, led to the 
passage and enactment of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  It was my personal honor to accompany John Lewis on countless 
pilgrimages to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to remember and acknowledge 
those common persons with common dreams and uncommon courage and love 
for the promise of the country.
  In 1986, John Lewis was elected to the United States House of 
Representatives from

[[Page E96]]

Georgia's 6th District and served in that role for 17 terms until the 
sun set on his heroic and extraordinary life.
  John Lewis's moral authority was colossal because he had seen the 
worst of us, but he always appealed to the best of us and never ceased 
to inspire us to strive to create the beloved community.
  John Lewis was the conscience of the Congress, widely beloved and 
revered on both sides of the aisle and the Capitol, he became the first 
African American lawmaker to lie in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol.
  John Lewis' moral authority in the United States House of 
Representatives was in full display when he led members in a 24-hour 
sit in on the floor of the House of Representatives.
  In John Lewis' final act of civic engagement and civil disobedience, 
he stood in the middle of Black Lives Matter Plaza showing solidarity 
and the continuity with the now global movement fighting galvanized by 
the horrific murder of George Floyd to peacefully protest for justice 
and equal treatment in the criminal justice system.
  Mr. Speaker, John Lewis was among the finest Americans this country 
ever produced, it is no exaggeration to say he was a man, the likes of 
which we shall not see again.
  In 2011, at a White House ceremony, President Barack Obama awarded 
John Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest 
civilian honor.
  John Lewis also received the Martin Luther King Jr. Nonviolent Peace 
Prize, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, and the National 
Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) Spingarn 
Medal.
  John Lewis was a true man of honor who dedicated his life to civil 
and human rights, as he broke down racial barriers while maintaining 
imperishable perseverance.
  John Lewis lived a consequential life, and his legacy is all around 
us, in the realization of talent and opportunity of millions of persons 
who walked through the doors of progress that John Lewis helped open.
  I hope it is comfort to the family and loved ones of John Lewis that 
people around the world are celebrating his life, including the act of 
Congress designating a post office in his name.

                          ____________________