There's a saying that I like. It goes, we drink from wells that we did not dig. It's

a reminder of the sacrifices folks have made for our lives to be better or more equal,

or to matter just a bit more. Congressman John Lewis died on Friday at age 80, and those

words keep ringing in my head, we drink from wells that we did not dig. In life, John Lewis dug deep.

As a teenage seminary student in Nashville, Tennessee, he joined nonviolent protest and

sit-ins to desegregate lunch counters.

We all together was a moving feeling within me that I was sitting there demanding for God

given right, and my soul became satisfied that I was right in what I was doing.

At the same time with something deep down within me, moving me that I could no longer be

satisfied or go along with an evil system.

By age 21, he joined the Freedom Rides, a harrowing and bloody journey into the deep south

to challenge segregated bus terminals. At age 23, Lewis was named chairman of the

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a major civil rights organization, and helped

organize the 1963 March on Washington for jobs at Freedom. He was the youngest speaker on the

day's that day.

Between 1960 and 1966, he was arrested more than 40 times while protesting for equal rights

for black Americans. At almost every turn, his peaceful resistance was met with violence.

He was beaten all across Alabama in places like Selma and Montgomery, but each time he'd

wipe the blood from his brow and keep going. At 46, John Lewis was elected to Congress,

representing Georgia's fifth congressional district, and would serve the next three and a half

decades until the day he died, fighting to hold on to many of the gangs that were made during

the civil rights movement. He'd pushed to expand access to health care and safeguard voting rights,

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