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He dressed up at Comic-Con. He preached to chickens. He's the John Lewis you don't know
I have been fortunate to hear Congressman John Lewis tell his preaching to chickens story four times in person. This man is a national treasure https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/21/politics/john-lewis-stories-blake/index.html
Lewis -- whose family called him "Robert," his middle name -- grew so attached to his feathered congregation that he conducted chicken weddings, baptisms and even eulogized chicken funerals. When his chickens were unavailable for worship, he would corral his younger siblings and cousins and preach to them. They nicknamed him "Preacher."
The Georgia congressman, whose district includes Atlanta, has told the chicken story so much that when a friend invited him to deliver some brief remarks at a reunion of civil rights leaders, he teased Lewis with a warning.
"We told him, 'Forget the chicken. We heard the chicken stories,'" says Larry Rubin, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who worked alongside Lewis. "'You only have five minutes. That chicken story takes 10 minutes.'"
Time is once again pressing on the longtime Democrat, who turns 80 today. Lewis disclosed in December that he's been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, an aggressive form that sometimes claims its victims within months.
Lewis is irreplaceable. He is the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington. He was on the front lines of the most dangerous campaigns of the civil rights era: the student sit-in movements, the Freedom Rides and of course that notorious 1965 moment at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Lewis and other marchers were attacked by state troopers with whips and nightsticks.
The Georgia congressman, whose district includes Atlanta, has told the chicken story so much that when a friend invited him to deliver some brief remarks at a reunion of civil rights leaders, he teased Lewis with a warning.
"We told him, 'Forget the chicken. We heard the chicken stories,'" says Larry Rubin, a former field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), who worked alongside Lewis. "'You only have five minutes. That chicken story takes 10 minutes.'"
Time is once again pressing on the longtime Democrat, who turns 80 today. Lewis disclosed in December that he's been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, an aggressive form that sometimes claims its victims within months.
Lewis is irreplaceable. He is the only surviving speaker from the 1963 March on Washington. He was on the front lines of the most dangerous campaigns of the civil rights era: the student sit-in movements, the Freedom Rides and of course that notorious 1965 moment at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Lewis and other marchers were attacked by state troopers with whips and nightsticks.
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