Because the information emerged late Friday that Consultant John Lewis had died, reward for the civil rights icon started to pour in from American
Because the information emerged late Friday that Consultant John Lewis had died, reward for the civil rights icon started to pour in from American political leaders who had recognized him for many years.
“We now have misplaced a large,” former President Invoice Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated in a joint assertion. “John Lewis gave all he needed to redeem America’s unmet promise of equality and justice for all, and to create a spot for us to construct a extra good union collectively.”
Hakeem Jeffries, chairman of the Home Democratic Caucus, wrote that Mr. Lewis had “altered the course of historical past and left America a significantly better place.”
“We now have misplaced a legendary chief, civil rights icon and alter agent extraordinaire,” Mr. Jeffries wrote.
“John Lewis was a human saint,” Mike Espy, a former Democratic congressman and agriculture secretary who’s working for Senate in Mississippi, wrote on Twitter. “I used to be fortunate sufficient to be his classmate and good friend. America has misplaced a hero.”
Justin Amash, the Libertarian congressman from Michigan who left the Republican Get together final yr, remembered Mr. Lewis on Twitter as “mild and robust and type.” He added, “His message was justice, and his voice was highly effective. Could his reminiscence be everlasting.”
In a Twitter thread, Consultant Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and one of many first two Muslim girls in Congress, referred to as Mr. Lewis a civil rights legend and a “ethical voice for the entire nation.”
When Ms. Omar arrived within the capital for freshman orientation, she recalled in 2018, she bumped into Mr. Lewis and burst into tears. “I stated to him, ‘Sir, I examine you in center faculty, and also you’re right here within the flesh, and I get to be your colleague,’” she stated throughout a tearful interview.
In her Twitter thread on Friday, Ms. Omar mirrored additional on her interactions with Mr. Lewis in Washington.
“He referred to as me ‘daughter’ and would inform me how unbelievable it was for me to be in Congress and go to Africa with him as his colleague,” she wrote. “He by no means misplaced his youthful pleasure and fervour for democracy.”
Mr. Lewis introduced in December that he had Stage four pancreatic most cancers and vowed to combat it with the identical ardour with which he had battled racial injustice.
He welcomed the latest demonstrations towards systemic racism and the police killings of Black folks, seeing them as a continuation of his life’s work.
Michael Hardaway, a spokesman for Mr. Jeffries, stated in an interview early Saturday morning that he had dropped by to see Mr. Lewis final yr, and that they’d spoken about social injustice on President Trump’s watch.
Mr. Lewis, Mr. Hardaway stated, “was unworried. He instructed me we’ll win. And that younger folks will cleared the path. The very last thing he stated was, ‘Be hopeful. Be optimistic. Be courageous.’”