On March 7, 1965, John Lewis led a march of hundreds of civil rights activists from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, to fight for voting rights and African-American suffrage. When they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Lewis and the activists met a wall of state troopers. Violence ensued and Lewis was brutally beaten, suffering a fractured skull, on a day that would come to be known as "Bloody Sunday."
Lewis became a member of the U.S. House of Representitives, a congressman for Georgia's 5th District, where he served from Jan. 3, 1987 to his death on July 17 of this year. Lewis had battled pancreatic cancer. He was 80 years old.
On Sunday, the body of Rep. Lewis crosses the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for the last time.
NPR will carry live coverage, beginning at 11 a.m. EST.
