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This past Friday, we lost two giants of the civil rights movement—CT Vivian and John Lewis.
Vivian was a Baptist minister, Freedom Rider, and a member of Martin Luther King’s inner circle. Beginning in 1963, he served as the national director of affiliates for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In that role, he was a major organizer for civil rights across the South.
Perhaps more familiar is John Lewis. Born to sharecroppers in rural Alabama, he heard Dr. King on the radio and was inspired to become involved in the civil rights movement. Working closely with Dr. King, he became the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Later he went on to serve 17 terms as a congressman in the US House of Representatives from 1987-2020. President Obama bestowed on Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Lewis stressed that the civil rights movement was built on deep-seated religious convictions.
