John Lewis Speaking at the March on Washington (John Lewis Series)

His activist career began as a Religion and Philosophy student at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he studied the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence under the mentorship of Reverend James Lawson and participated in lunch counter sit-ins.

He was also one of the original Freedom Riders, a multiracial group of civil rights activists taking interstate bus trips through the South in 1961 to test Supreme Court decisions that segregation on interstate buses (Morgan v. Virginia, 1946) and in interstate bus terminal stations (Boynton v. Virginia, 1960) were unconstitutional. The young activists attempted to integrate restrooms, waiting rooms, and lunch counters at terminals and were greeted by mobs, with John Lewis violently attacked at Rock Hill, South Carolina and Montgomery, Alabama Greyhound bus terminals.

In 1963, as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and one of The Big Six, he was the youngest speaker at the historic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

"We're tired of being beaten by policeman. We're tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. We want our freedom and we want it now!" --John Lewis speech delivered at the Lincoln Memorial, 1963 March on Washington

Benny Andrews (b. 1930, d. 2006) was a celebrated African American painter, printmaker, and collage artist. Born to sharecroppers in Plainview, Georgia, he went on to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before finding success in New York City. His narrative works documented social and political themes of the times, including depictions of the American Civil Rights movement, anti-war protests, personal and familial narratives, and the relocation of American Indians. He later illustrated children’s books about the lives of prominent figures in Black history, such as Langston Hughes, Josephine Carroll Smith, and his friend Congressman John Lewis. The John Lewis Series was one of his final bodies of work.

“For Benny there was no line where his activism ended, and his art began. To him, using his brush and his pen to capture the essence and spirit of his time was as much an act of protest as sitting-in or sitting-down was for me.” – John Lewis