The body of civil rights leader and politician John Lewis has arrived in Washington DC, ahead of a week of ceremonies marking the life of the famed activist.
Lewis died on July 17, aged 80 – the last surviving member of the Big Six, who together organized the 1963 March on Washington.
He was among the original 13 Freedom Riders who rode buses across the South in 1961 to challenge segregation in public transportation.
The riders were attacked and beaten, and one of their buses was firebombed. But the rides changed the way people traveled, and set the stage for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
From Monday Lewis will lie in state in the Capitol – the first black politician to receive one of the highest of American honors.
Donald Trump, asked on Monday if he would be attending, replied: ‘I won’t be going. No.’
John Lewis’s body arriving in Washington DC on Monday, ahead of his lying in state beneath the Rotunda of the Capitol
John Lewis, who died on July 17, was a beloved member of Congress who had represented Atlanta since 1986, for 17 terms
Lewis died on July 17, aged 80. He was the last surviving member of the Big Six, who organized the 1963 March on Washington
Lewis’s flag-draped coffin was carried out by members of a joint services military honor guard in Washington DC on Monday
He will lie beneath the dome of the Rotunda for a short while, before the commemorations are moved outside, for public safety.
Last year Elijah Cummings, another civil rights advocate, became the first black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol, though he was honored in Statuary Hall, not in the Rotunda, where presidents and other statesmen have lain.
The site is reserved for the nation’s most revered figures, most recently including President George Bush and Senator John McCain.
Rosa Parks, the civil rights pioneer, lay in honor there in 2005, receiving the highest honor afforded to a private citizen.
The motorcade carrying the body stopped at Black Lives Matter Plaza as it wound through Washington.
Members of the public can pay their respects in Washington DC from 6pm on Monday until 10pm on Tuesday.
On Wednesday the commemorations move to Atlanta, where Lewis lived. He served as a representative for the city for 17 consecutive terms, from 1986.
He will be brought to the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on Wednesday.
Ceremonies will conclude on Thursday, with a private funeral at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta – a church with strong ties to the civil rights movement.
The commemorations began in Alabama on Saturday, in the town of Troy where he was born – the third of ten children born to sharecroppers.
Lewis following his arrest in Mississippi in May 1961 for using a restroom reserved for white people during the Freedom Ride
Lewis’s funeral cortege was surrounded by outriders and well-wishers lined the route to the Capitol
The 80-year-old announced in December that he was suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer
Lewis is pictured with the Obamas in March 2015, on the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery civil rights march
At a service on Saturday in an arena at Troy University in Alabama, the state of his birth, his surviving siblings and others paid tribute.
His sister, Ethel Mae Tyner, recalled the days long ago when family members worked together in the cotton fields near Troy and storm clouds would pass over. Young John Lewis was fearful of storms but would not budge.
‘He would start singing – and preaching. He always was a fighter,’ she said.
His brother, Samuel Lewis, said that Lewis’s famous idea of ‘good trouble’ began young.
‘I remember the day that John left home,’ he said.
‘Mother told him not to get in trouble, not to get in the way… but we all know that John got in trouble, got in the way but it was good trouble.
‘And the troubles that he got himself into would change the world.’
Seven-year-old Jaxson Lewis Brewster, John Lewis’ young great-nephew, said: ‘John Lewis was my uncle and my hero, and it is up to us to keep his legacy alive.’
While attending segregated schools in Alabama, Lewis was inspired by the peaceful protests of rights leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and he eventually rose to join their ranks.
After the ceremony Saturday in Troy, commemorations moved to Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama for a private remembrance followed by a public viewing.
A hearse carrying the flag-draped casket with the body of Lewis stops in front of the Lincoln Memorial
Lewis, photographed in his office in Washington DC in 2009, was known as the ‘conscience of Congress’
Nancy Pelosi is pictured arriving at the Capitol, ahead of Lewis’s memorial service. Donald Trump is not expected to attend
Pelosi of Calif., looks over the steps of the Capitol where the flag-draped casket of the Lewis will arrive
The motorcade is seen heading towards the Capitol in Washington DC, for an invitation-only ceremony
Monday’s tributes inside the Capitol will be invitation-only, and held beneath the Rotunda.
The Rev. Grainger Browning Jr. of Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington, Maryland, will give the invocation, followed by remarks from Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader.
There will be a presentation of wreaths by Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader; Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader; Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader; and Senator Tim Scott, Republican of South Carolina.
The vocal artist Wintley Phipps will sing the Christian hymns Amazing Grace and It Is Well.
Representative James E. Clyburn, Democrat of South Carolina and the majority whip, will give the benediction.
Donald Trump is not expected to attend.
After the ceremony, from 6pm on Monday members of the public will be able to line up in a socially distanced way to see him lying in state from the plaza below.
Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., (center) is escorted into a mass meeting at Fish University in Nashville. His colleagues are, left to right, John Lewis, national chairman of the Student Non-Violent Committee and Lester McKinnie, on of the leaders in the racial demonstrations in Nashville.
A program is seen on a seat inside of the Capitol Rotunda prior to a service honoring Lewis, on Monday afternoon
A man waits alone, sitting with a box of tissues, prior to the memorial service in the Rotunda – where Rosa Parks was honored
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who served in Congress alongside Lewis, is expected to visit the Capitol to pay his respects.
The pair became friends over their two decades on Capitol Hill together and Biden´s two terms as vice president to Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president who awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
Notably absent from the ceremonies was Trump, who publicly jousted with Lewis.
Lewis once called Trump an an illegitimate president and chided him for stoking racial discord. Trump countered by calling Lewis’s Atlanta congressional district ‘crime-infested.’
Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Reps. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Karen Bass of California, were seen sporting ‘Good Trouble’ face masks, a nod to one of Lewis’s favorite pieces of advice.
‘Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic,’ Lewis tweeted in 2018.
‘Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.’
Just ahead of the ceremonies Monday, the House passed a bill to establish a new federal commission to study conditions that affect black men and boys.
At that moment, the motorcade was passing along the newly-named Black Lives Matter Plaza.
Lewis’s motorcade passing through Black Lives Matter Plaza, in Washington DC. The site was renamed earlier this summer
The hearse carrying moves along a section of 16th Street that’s been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington
Crowds gathered along the route of the cortege, as it passed through central Washington DC
While at Black Lives Matter Plaza, members of Lewis’s family were presented with commemorative signs.
The street was renamed by Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, at the beginning of June.
Bowser renamed the street in front of the White House ‘Black Lives Matter Plaza’ and had the slogan painted on the asphalt in massive yellow letters.
City officials said the actions were meant to honor demonstrators who are urging changes in law enforcement practices after the May 25 killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, in the custody of Minneapolis police.
Trump sparked anger by clearing demonstrators with tear gas and pellets to make way for him to stage a photo op in front of the White House.
‘There was a dispute this week about whose street it is, and Mayor Bowser wanted to make it abundantly clear whose street it is and honor the peaceful demonstrators who assembled,’ said John Falcicchio, the mayor’s chief of staff.
Bowser presented a Black Lives Matter Plaza street sign to a representative of the family of John Lewis
A large crowd greeted the cortege as it made its way along Black Lives Matter Plaza, near the White House