Rep. John Lewis named recipient of 2016 Liberty Medal

U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a sharecropper's son who helped lead the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., will receive this year's Liberty Medal, the National Constitution Center announced Thursday.

Lewis, a Democrat who represents Georgia's Fifth District, is the last surviving "Big Six" leader of the civil rights movement. Others in the group were the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young.

"It is an honor for me to receive the Liberty Medal, especially as the U.S. Constitution Center celebrates the 150th anniversary of the 14th Amendment," Lewis, who was out of the country, said in a statement. "Hopefully, this award will inspire young activists to continue to speak up and speak out and to see their work as the kind of 'good trouble, necessary trouble' that helps create a more perfect union."

When discussing whom to choose for the honor, Lewis' name came up "early and often," said Vince Stango, chief operating officer of the Constitution Center.

"As a civil rights icon and someone who is still fighting the fight for civil rights, it was an appropriate time in our nation's history and for the National Constitution Center to honor his work," Stango said.

"Rep. Lewis is an inspiration to people all over the world," Mayor Kenney said in a statement. "On behalf of the City of Philadelphia, I am thrilled to welcome him back to our city."

The medal will be awarded at a ceremony Sept. 19. It carries a $100,000 cash prize.

The 76-year-old, 15-term congressman was born outside Troy, Ala., and raised on the family's farm. He attended segregated public schools before attending the American Baptist Theological Seminary and Fisk University, a historically black college in Nashville.

While a student at Fisk, he organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. He later volunteered to participate in the Freedom Rides in defiance of the segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was a keynote speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington.

In his campaign for civil rights over the years, Lewis was arrested more than 40 times and was physically attacked and beaten. While on the voting rights march to Selma his skull was fractured.

In 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Lewis the associate director of ACTION, a federal domestic volunteer agency established in 1971. He was an Atlanta City Council member before running for Congress.

Lewis is a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and ranking member of its Subcommittee on Oversight.

His wife of 44 years, Lillian Miles Lewis, died in 2012. He has one son, John Miles.

Past winners of the Liberty Medal, which was established in 1988, include the Dalai Lama; Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager and activist for female education who won the Nobel Peace Prize; filmmaker Stephen Spielberg; U2 front man Bono; and Muhammad Ali.

mschaefer@phillynews.com

215-854-4908 @MariSchaefer