John Lewis with M.L. King (John Lewis Series)

As a child, he experienced the discrimination and segregation of Jim Crow, including attending segregated schools and being denied a public library card due to his race. Unable to check out books, the enthusiastic learner spent hours reading inside.

Due to safety concerns, his parents discouraged direct action against racial inequality. But teenage John Lewis was inspired by news of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the defiant courage of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

“When I was 15 years old in the tenth grade, I heard Martin Luther King, Jr. Three years later, when I was 18, I met Dr. King and we became friends. Two years after that I became very involved in the civil rights movement. I was in college at the time. As I got more and more involved, I saw politics as a means of bringing about change”
-- John Lewis

About the artist: 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.