John Lewis death: Republican senators post photos of Elijah Cummings in tributes to civil rights icon

Zoe Tidman
·2 min read
Marco Rubio and Dan Sullivan, two US senators, have used a picture of a different late congressman in tributes to John Lewis: Getty Images
Marco Rubio and Dan Sullivan, two US senators, have used a picture of a different late congressman in tributes to John Lewis: Getty Images

Two US senators have mistakenly posted images of Elijah Cummings in their social media tributes to the late John Lewis.

Both posts were quickly changed to include a picture of Mr Lewis, a Democratic congressman and civil rights icon who died aged 80 earlier this week.

“Earlier today I tweeted an incorrect photo,” Marco Rubio, a Republican senator for Florida, later posted.

“John Lewis was a genuine American hero. I was honoured to appear together in Miami three years ago at an event captured in video below.”

Dan Sullivan, another Republican senator, initially made a Facebook tribute to Mr Lewis - who was one of the Big Six civil rights activists led by the Martin Luther King Jr - featuring a photo of himself with the late Mr Cummings at the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The Alaskan senator's revised tribute omitted the reference to the museum and the photo of the pair was replaced with a picture of Mr Lewis alone.

The changes were made without comment.

In response to an email, Mr Sullivan's spokesman Mike Anderson said: “Senator Sullivan’s staff made a mistake trying to honour an American legend.”

Mr Lewis, a Democrat from Atlanta, was the last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists.

He was best known for leading 600 protesters in the 1965 Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Mr Lewis was knocked to the ground and beaten by state troopers.

Televised images forced the country’s attention on racial oppression.

Mr Lewis went on to become known as the “conscience of congress” for the decades he spent in the House of Representatives.

The longtime Georgia congressman died on Friday, several months after he announced he had been diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer.

Mr Cummings, a fellow civil rights activist and congressman for a district in Maryland, died last year aged 68.

The senior Democrat was a leading figure in the impeachment inquiry into the US president Donald Trump.

Additional reporting by Associated Press