“The boy from Troy,” as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called him, made one more visit home as the late Congressman from Georgia John Lewis was memorialized in his birthplace, Troy, Alabama, on Saturday, Politico reports.
The civil rights icon was honored with a service at Troy University, a college into which Lewis was denied admission in 1957 because he was Black. Years later, the school would honor Lewis with an honorary degree.
On Sunday, his flag-draped coffin will be carried across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, the site of a 1965 march that ended with Alabama State Troopers beating the unarmed, peaceful protesters with baton.
Lewis, dressed in a suit, a tie, and a trenchcoat and with a backpack that carried just an apple, sustained significant injuries from an officer’s club that led to his hospitalization.
“I remember the day that John left home. Mother told him not to get in trouble, not to get in the way … but we all know that John got in trouble, got in the way but it was good trouble,” his brother Samuel Lewis said. “And the troubles that he got himself into would change the world.”
Lewis died July 17th after battling pancreatic cancer. His body will be honored at the Capitol Rotunda on Monday, with a public viewing outside the Capitol later Monday and Tuesday to accommodate public health concerns.
President Trump didn’t acknowledge the passing of the Congressman until fifteen hours after his death was announced. Trump opted to play a round of golf before tweeting his condolences to “he and his family.”