JUDY WOODRUFF: For the final farewell to John Lewis today, local activists and national
luminaries joined his friends and family at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. preached and where Lewis himself worshiped.
The funeral service for Representative John Lewis included remembrances from four former
U.S. presidents, three in person, including Republican George W. Bush, who said Lewis
and his faith elevated America's politics.
GEORGE W. BUSH, Former President of the United States: Listen, John and I had our disagreements,
of course, but in the America John Lewis fought for and the America I believe in, differences
of opinion are inevitable elements and evidence of democracy in action.
(APPLAUSE)
GEORGE W. BUSH: We the people, including congressmen and presidents, can have differing views on
how to perfect our union, while sharing the conviction that our nation, however flawed,
is at heart a good and noble one.
JUDY WOODRUFF: From former President Bill Clinton a reminder that John Lewis, the activist,
was also a committed bridge-builder.
BILL CLINTON, Former President of the United States: As a young man, he challenged others
to join him with love and dignity to hold America's house down and open the doors of
America to all its people.
He got into a lot of good trouble along the way, but let's not forget, he also developed
an absolutely uncanny ability to heal troubled waters.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Former President Jimmy Carter sent a written message, and House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi remembered the lawmaker she served with for decades, with whom she returned to
Selma many times.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): That is what John Lewis was all about, nonviolently insisting
on the truth.
He insisted on the truth in Nashville, in Selma, in Washington, D.C., at the Lincoln
Memorial. He insisted on the truth wherever he went. And he insisted on the truth in the
Congress of the United States. He always talked about truth marching on. He always worked
for a more perfect union.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Pioneering activist James Lawson said Lewis was leaving a legacy of working
against oppression of all sorts.
REV. JAMES LAWSON, Civil Rights Activist: Racism, sexism, violence, plantation capitalism,
those poisons still dominate far too many of us in many different ways.
John's life was a singular journey from birth, through the campaigns in the South, through
Congress to get us to see that these forces of wickedness must be resisted.
JUDY WOODRUFF: It was left to the last of the former presidents to speak today, Barack
Obama, to deliver the eulogy. He chose to link Lewis' causes to the politics of now.
BARACK OBAMA: There are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people
from voting by closing polling locations, and targeting minorities and students with
restrictive I.D. laws, and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining
the Postal Service in the run-up to an election.
He knew that every single one of us has a God-given power, and that the fate of this
democracy depends on how we use it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The Obama eulogy was in keeping with Lewis' forward-looking final words to
Americans, written shortly before he died, but published today in The New York Times
and other outlets.
He wrote: "In my life, I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the
way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say
that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last, and that
peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war."
Late today, John Lewis was laid to rest in his beloved Atlanta.
And how much this country owes that one man, John Lewis.