Jonathan Allen, CQ Politics
- Georgia Rep. John Lewis , a battle-scarred veteran of the 1960s black civil rights movement, will introduce a video tribute to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. tonight before Barack Obama becomes the first African-American to accept a major party’s presidential nomination. The Democrats’ choice of Lewis is no coincidence, as it will not be the first time he has been prominently featured on the undercard of a historic American oration.
Lewis, then a 23-year-old activist, gave a fiery talk 45 years ago today from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., just before King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech to a mass, multi-racial march for civil rights.
Lewis is a human bridge from that moment to this one, as the only living member of the Civil Rights Movement’s “Big Six” leaders who also included King, fellow activists James Farmer, Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins and organized labor leader A. Philip Randolph.
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