The casket of U.S. Representative from Georgia John Lewis arrives during a ceremony preceding the lying in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S. July 27, 2020. Shawn Thew/Pool via REUTER
U.S. lawmakers set aside partisanship on Monday to honor the late Georgia Representative John Lewis as the casket bearing the civil rights legend known as "the Conscience of Congress” arrived at the U.S Capitol.
Dozens of Lewis’s congressional colleagues were set to attend at the invitation-only ceremony in the Rotunda along with John-Miles Lewis, the late lawmaker’s son, three of his siblings and other family members.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell were among the lawmakers scheduled to give remarks, and Representative James Clyburn, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, was scheduled to deliver the benediction. Vice President Mike Pence and former Vice President Joe Biden were scheduled to visit later in the day.
Social distancing was in place because of the coronavirus pandemic, and on-site media coverage of the televised event was limited. Thousands of people are expected to line up later Monday and throughout Tuesday for a outdoors public viewing of Lewis’s casket at the top of the Capitol’s East Front steps. They will pay their respects under flags flying at half-staff, and a strict requirement to wear masks.
Lewis, who had announced in December that he would begin treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer, was 80 years old when he died on July 17. He was a widower, having survived his wife, Lillian Miles, who died in 2012.
He is the first Black man to lie in state at the Rotunda, a rare designation reserved for U.S. statesmen and military leaders, including 12 presidents.
Two other African Americans had been honored there after their deaths -- civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks in 2005 and slain Capitol Police office Jacob Chestnut Jr. in 1998. Representative Elijah Cummings, who died in 2019, lay in state in the Capitol’s Statuary Hall. Lewis is just the 37th person to lie in state or honor in either the Rotunda or Statuary Hall, according to House historian Matthew Wasniewski.
John-Miles Lewis and other family members arrived at the Capital with the coffin after a procession through Washington in a motorcade that made stops at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which Lewis called one of his proudest legislative achievements.
Lewis, one of the original Freedom Riders, helped organize the 1963 March on Washington where King gave his legendary "I Have a Dream” speech and the 1965 voting-rights march in Selma, Alabama, where he was severely beaten after crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
An apostle of non-violent protest, Lewis became a leading liberal voice during 17 terms in the House representing at district located mostly in Atlanta. In 2011, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, from President Barack Obama.
Before arriving in Washington on Monday, Lewis had lain in repose in Montgomery, the capital of his native Alabama. His body will be taken to Atlanta on Wednesday, where he will lie in state the Georgia capitol.
His funeral and burial are scheduled to take place Thursday in Atlanta.
