Obama to Speak at John Lewis Funeral

Former President Obama will speak to the late representative. John LewisJohn LewisLawmakers, John Lewis Biden Public Farewell: Next week I will choose a fellow candidate Harris: Barr “has nothing to say the name of John Lewis” MORE‘s (D-Ga.) funeral on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the plans.

Obama will attend the service along with former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill clintonWilliam (Bill) Jefferson Clinton Reforming the environmental review to build a cleaner and brighter future It is 1980 in reverse How John Lewis saved the NASA International Space Station from cancellation MORE, according to multiple reports. The funeral for the longtime Georgia civil rights icon and legislator will take place at 11 am at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Lewis died earlier this month at the age of 80. He announced late last year that he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

“I first met John when he was in law school and told him he was one of my heroes. Years later, when I was elected to the US Senator, I told him I was on his shoulders, “the former president said in a statement after Lewis’s death.

“When I was elected President of the United States, I hugged him to the inauguration post before he was sworn in and told him he was only there because of the sacrifices he made,” Obama wrote on Medium.

“And throughout all those years, he never ceased to provide wisdom and encouragement to me, Michelle and our family. We will greatly miss him,” he continued.

Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders and the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. He was the only person to comment on the historic civil rights march to witness Obama become the nation’s first black president.

Lewis was hit by a Georgia state soldier and his skull was fractured during the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, which became known as “Bloody Sunday.”

On Sunday, Lewis’s body was escorted across the bridge in Alabama for the last time in tribute, alongside a military honor guard.

Lewis this week was the first black lawmaker in the history of the United States to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda in Washington, DC