The late U.S. congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis returned to Washington on Monday, taking a final journey past several civil rights landmarks before his casket was taken to the Capitol, where it will lie in state for officials and the public to pay their last respects. Lewis died last week at the age of 80 after a yearlong battle with advanced-stage pancreatic cancer.His casket is being brought to the building where he served the people of his Georgia district for 33 years. After flying into Joint Base Andrews in Maryland outside Washington, Lewis’s casket was loaded into a hearse and taken into the city via motorcade led by motorcycle police. The motorcade took a circuitous route through the city, with a slow pass by the Lincoln Memorial where, in 1963, Lewis had been the youngest speaker during the Martin Luther King-led March on Washington. The motorcade then drove by the memorial honoring King, on the tidal basin just off the National Mall. A hearse with the flag-draped casket of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., pauses in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, on way to the Capitol, July 27, 2020.Next, the motorcade wound across the Mall, past the White House and onto the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza, where the civil rights icon made his last public appearance in early June. Lewis, who was diagnosed in late December with pancreatic cancer, died July 17. From there, the motorcade worked its way back to the Mall for a pass by the African American Museum, where Lewis is remembered among other civil rights activists. From there, the motorcade eventually arrived at the Capitol where Lewis’ casket was greeted by a host of high-profile political leaders for an arrival ceremony in the Capitol’s Rotunda. Inside the capitol, public officials, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, are expected to pay their respects. The general public has been prohibited from entering the Capitol complex since mid-March, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so Lewis’ casket will be positioned at the top of the center steps of the Capitol, just outside the Rotunda. The flag-draped casket of the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a key figure in the civil rights movement and a 17-term congressman, lies in state at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2020.Later Monday, people would be able to walk up to the bottom of those steps to pay tribute to Lewis, with social distancing and mask-wearing requirements in place. Lewis will be the second Black lawmaker to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol. Congressman Elijah Cummings, who died last year, was the first.The public will be able to pay their respects to Lewis all day Tuesday, before his body is flown to Atlanta to lie in state Wednesday in the Georgia Capitol. A funeral will be held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, the historically black church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached. He will be laid to rest in Atlanta’s South View Cemetery.Prior to returning to Washington, Lewis lay in state Sunday in Montgomery, Alabama, to give the people of his home state a final chance to pay their last respects.Lewis’ body arrived at the Alabama Capitol shortly after a horse-drawn caisson brought his flag-draped casket across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the same bridge where police beat him and other civil rights marchers when they tried to cross it during a walk to Montgomery in 1965. That day became known as “Bloody Sunday.”That day was known as “Bloody Sunday.” No one at the bridge 55 years ago would imagine that one day, a Black man would cross that same bridge in honor, with flags across the state flown at half-staff as a sign of respect for him and all he fought to achieve.FILE – An image of the late Georgia Congressman and civil rights pioneer U.S. Rep. John Lewis is projected on to the pedestal of the statue of confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Va., July 22, 2020.Sunday was the second day of nearly a week of memorials and remembrances for Lewis.Lewis rose to fame as a leader of the modern-day American civil rights movement of the 1960s. At 23, he worked closely with King and was the last surviving speaker from the August 1963 March on Washington where King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.The civil rights movement led Lewis into a career in politics. He was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981 and to Congress in 1986, calling the latter victory “the honor of a lifetime.” He served 17 terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia’s fifth district.
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