July 30, 2020
Barack Obama will be among three former presidents attending the funeral service of civil rights hero John Lewis on Thursday morning.
Obama will eulogize the longtime Congressman, who died July 17 at age 80 following a battle with pancreatic cancer.
The ceremony will begin at 11 a.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church-Horizon Sanctuary, located at Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park in Atlanta, Georgia. Lewis will be laid to rest at South View Cemetery following the ceremony.
The service will stream live on PBS. The video can be found below:
Former presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also will be at the funeral, CNN reported. Former President Jimmy Carter will not be attending because the 95-year-old and his wife, Rosalynn, 92, are "not traveling much these days," according to Carter Center spokesperson Soyia Ellison. President Donald Trump also will not attend the ceremony.
Lewis' funeral service is closed to the general public due to the coronavirus pandemic. All attendees are asked to wear masks or face coverings. The service will mark the end of a week-long series of ceremonies celebrating his life. Memorials also were held in Alabama, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta.
Lewis represented Georgia's Fifth Congressional District for 33 years. Lewis was a lifelong advocate for equality and played a prominent role in the Civil Rights Movement.
He most notably led more than 600 protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama to call for equal voting rights in 1965. The protest became known as "Bloody Sunday" after video footage showed police officers brutally beating the demonstrators. Congress passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 following the protest.
Lewis also participated in the Freedom Rides in 1961, fighting against segregation at bus terminals in the south. He was an organizer and keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in 1963.
In 2011, Obama awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his dedication to civil rights.
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