The late U.S. Representative from Georgia and champion of the civil rights movement, John Lewis, is set to be honored on a “forever” postage stamp in 2023.
In announcing the new stamp Tuesday, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) noted Lewis’ more than 30 years serving in Congress “steadfastly defending and building on key civil rights gains that he had helped achieve in the 1960s.” Adding, “Even in the face of hatred and violence, as well as some 45 arrests, Lewis remained resolute in his commitment to what he liked to call ‘good trouble.’”
Lewis died in July 2020, roughly seven months after he’d gone public with the news that he’d been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
During his decades on Capitol Hill representing Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, Lewis was known as the “conscience of the U.S. Congress.”
In his crusading for civil rights, Lewis was critically wounded when he was beaten by police on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965 attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, AL with other activists. In 2021, the Alabama state legislature passed an effort to rename the bridge after Lewis.
