How Did John Lewis Influence The Civil Rights Movement

The civil rights movement was a very emotional, yet pivotal time in African American history. Famous leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Coretta Scott King, and Rosa Parks, were highly influential, and talked about over the years in classrooms, story books,and in the news. But there is someone who had Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s back through every rally, every jail sentence, civil rights march, and boycott. His name is John Lewis.
John Robert Lewis was born February 21st, 1940 to two sharecroppers in Pike, Alabama. He had a very happy childhood, despite the harsh living conditions, and rough upbringings. He was born is the cusp of the era of black oppression. He went to an all black school and he disliked the unfairness of segregation.

At the seminar he learned about non-violent protests,and he wanted to earnestly be apart of the movement. Throughout the latter years his arrest record became pretty lengthy. This disappointed his mother severely and she wanted him to come home, but his yearning to notice a change in the world kept him on his fight. In 1961 he became a freedom rider. A freedom rider was someone who challenged the segregated buses, and central transit systems that were deemed illegal for African Americans to ride.
In 1963 Lewis became chairman of the Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee. With this he helped students establish sit-ins in restaurants specifically designated for Caucasian Americans. John also helped plan The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. Attended by some 250,000 people, it was the largest demonstration ever seen in the nation's capital, and one of the first to have extensive television

This was a major achievement for everyone involved including John. The youngest activist in the middle of it all. Although the segregation was banned, John wasn’t merely satisfied. He still didn’t feel like Blacks had the same rights as Whites.
During January and February, 1965, Dr. King led a series of demonstrations to the Dallas County Courthouse. On February 17, protester Jimmy Lee Jackson was fatally shot by an Alabama state trooper. In response, a protest march from Selma to Montgomery was scheduled for March 7.
Six hundred marchers assembled in Selma on Sunday, March 7, and, led by John Lewis himself, and other SNCC activists, crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge over the Alabama River in route to Montgomery. Just before they got to the bridge, they found their way blocked by Alabama State troopers and local police who ordered them to turn around. John and other protesters refused, probing the officers to shoot teargas and rush into the crowd, beating the nonviolent protesters with billy clubs and ultimately hospitalizing over fifty