Obama to Present Praise of Civil Rights Icon John Lewis in Atlanta


Former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush will also attend and participate in the funeral.

There will be a “celebration of life” at the Ebenezer Baptist Church Horizon Sanctuary at 11 am ET, according to an announcement from the Lewis family. A family statement states that “given COVID-19 precautions, this event is not open to the public. Attendees will be required to cover their faces and mouths.”

The service will then be followed by burial at the South-View Cemetery.

Former President Jimmy Carter, the oldest of the four living former presidents, will not attend, Carter Center spokeswoman Soyia Ellison told CNN in an email Wednesday night.

“The Carters don’t travel these days, but they send their condolences in writing,” Ellison wrote.

Carter, 95, issued a statement when the civil rights icon passed away on July 17, saying that Lewis “left an indelible mark on history through his quest to make our nation more just” and “never he shunned what he called “a good problem” to lead our nation on the path to human and civil rights. “

Thursday’s events will culminate a series of memorial ceremonies honoring the late congressman, who served as the representative of the United States in Georgia’s 5th Congressional District for more than three decades and was widely viewed as a congressional moral conscience to his decades-long incarnation of The Nonviolent Struggle for Civil Rights.

Lewis died at the age of 80 after a six-month battle with cancer, a loss that sparked a torrent of pain and tributes to his life and legacy across the country.

Thousands line up to pay tribute to Lewis despite Covid's heat and precautions

As part of a series of events honoring Lewis over the past week, his body lay in state at the United States Capitol in Washington, a tribute reserved for the most distinguished military and government officials.

Lewis was a leading figure in the civil rights movement. Angered by the injustice of the Jim Crow South, he launched what he called “good trouble” with organized protests and sit-ins. In the early 1960s, he was a freedom rider, challenging segregation at interstate bus terminals throughout the south and in the nation’s capital.

Several lawmakers wore face masks with the “good trouble” message written during a ceremony on the United States Capitol after Lewis’ coffin arrived there earlier this week.

At age 25, Lewis helped lead a voting rights march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he and other protesters were greeted by heavily armed state and local police officers who attacked them with sticks, fracturing the skull of Lewis. The images of that “Bloody Sunday” shocked the nation and spurred support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, enacted by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

After a brief ceremony outside the Brown Chapel AME Church on Sunday, Lewis’s body traveled in a horse-drawn crate several blocks from downtown Selma to the Pettus Bridge, which crossed his flag-covered coffin.

Representative John Lewis' coffin moves over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in a horse-drawn carriage during a memorial service for Lewis on Sunday in Selma, Alabama.

The body of the deceased congressman was taken to the Georgia State Capitol in Atlanta on Wednesday, where Governor Brian Kemp, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, and their spouses could be seen on the steps of the Capitol waiting to receive the coffin.

President Donald Trump said Monday that he would not pay his respects to Lewis, as his body lay in state on the United States Capitol.

“No, I will not go, no,” Trump said when asked if he would travel Monday or Tuesday to honor the late congressman.

The president also avoided a last chance to pay tribute in person on Wednesday at Andrews Joint Base.

Trump left the base for Texas around 9:55 a.m. ET, approximately 30 minutes late after speaking to reporters at the White House.

A procession with the body of Lewis and his family arrived in Andrews a few minutes later, received by an honor guard. The plane carrying Lewis’s coffin, along with a separate plane for his family, departed after a brief ceremony.

The two groups did not overlap on Andrews’ track. After days of Lewis remembrance and remembrance, Trump didn’t mention it when he left Washington.

The president issued a cursory statement on Twitter after Lewis’s death and ordered that the flags be reduced to half the staff.

“Sad to hear the news of the passing of civil rights hero John Lewis. Melania and I send our prayers to him and his family,” he wrote on Twitter.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak, Caroline Kelly and Faith Karimi contributed to this report.

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