John Lewis: An American Civil Rights Hero and Icon

John Lewis Leads Marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, Alabama, March 7, 1965. Copyright by the Birmingham News, all rights reserved.

“When you lose a sense of fear, you’re free.”

John Lewis, the man who spoke those words, lost his fear on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma during the march to Montgomery on March 7, 1965. The day is known as Bloody Sunday.

He thought he was going to die. His skull was battered and cracked by the nightsticks of mounted troopers during the peaceful…