John Lewis, a civil rights icon who began pushing for racial justice in the Jim Crow south, has died

John Lewis, a giant in the history of civil
rights, he was 80 years old.                      

Rep. John R. Lewis, the civil rights icon whose fight for racial justice began in the Jim Crow south and ended in the halls of Congress, died Friday night.

The Georgia lawmaker had been suffering from Stage IV pancreatic cancer since December. He was 80.

The son of Alabama sharecroppers, Lewis served in Congress for more than three decades, pushing the causes he championed as an original Freedom Rider challenging segregation, discrimination and injustice in the Deep South – issues reverberating today in the Black Lives Matter movement.

Along with Martin Luther King Jr., he was an organizer of the March on Washington in 1963, a seminal moment in the Civil Rights Movement that led to the passage of voting rights for Blacks two years later.