Inside Story

How will John Lewis be remembered?

Mourners in the US pay tribute to rights champion before his body is laid to rest.

John Lewis is being remembered in a six-day memorial service that follows his journey through life.

The 17-term congressman from Georgia, who was hailed as the “conscience of Congress’, died of pancreatic cancer on July 17 at the age of 80.

A lifetime civil rights leader in the United States who inspired the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, he was the last of the “Big Six” rights figures led by Martin Luther King Jr.

Lewis will be laid to rest in a private ceremony in Atlanta on Thursday.

So how will his legacy shape the Black Lives Matter movement?

Presenter: Laura Kyle

Guests:

Rasheen Aldridge Jr – Member of the Missouri State House of Representatives

Tricia Rose – Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University

Lester Spence – Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University