Civil rights icon Lewis to lie in repose at Georgia Capitol

The Associated Press

4 years ago

Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from right, and his son Jonathan Jackson, center, paying their respe ... — Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from right, and his son Jonathan Jackson, center, paying their respects to the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., lying in state on the East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Jaquenette Ferguson from Oxon Hill, Md., gestures as she gets her picture taken beside a portrait of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., near the East Front Steps of the U.S. the Capitol, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, second from the right, with his son Jonathan Jackson, center and Rev. Sheridan Todd Yeary, far right, leaving the Capitol after paying their respects to the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., lying in state on the East Front Steps of the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Tonya Jones, of New York City, left, bumps elbows with the Rev. Jesse Jackson, as he leaves after viewing the flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as he lies in state on the East Front Steps of the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 28, 2020. Walking behind Jackson is his son Jonathan Jackson, right.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

An officer guards the flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., as he lies in state on the East Front Steps of the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 28, 2020. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

ATLANTA — John Lewis will lie in repose at the Georgia capitol in his hometown of Atlanta in one of the last memorial services for the late Democratic congressman before he is buried.

Members of the public will be able to pay their respects to Lewis on Wednesday at the state capitol rotunda following a ceremony in his honor. A private burial service in Atlanta is scheduled for Thursday.

Lewis died July 17 at the age of 80. Born to sharecroppers during Jim Crow segregation, he was beaten by Alabama state troopers during the civil rights movement, spoke ahead of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 March on Washington and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the nation’s first Black president in 2011.

He spent more than three decades in Congress, and his district included most of Atlanta. Wednesday’s service is part of a series of public remembrances for Lewis that began over the weekend.

On Sunday, his flag-draped casket was carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where the one-time “Freedom Rider” was among civil rights demonstrators beaten by state troopers in 1965.

A memorial service at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Monday drew Congressional leaders from both parties. Lewis was the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda.