U.S. Postal Service honors civil rights hero John Lewis with new stamp

The United States Postal Service this week announced seven new stamp designs for 2023, one of which will honor the life and legacy of U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

Until he died of pancreatic cancer in 2020, Lewis led a lifelong fight for justice and equality. Growing up as the son of sharecroppers in Troy, Lewis began his activism at an early age, though his parents discouraged him from causing trouble. He circulated a petition to desegregate his local public library, and when he graduated high school, he had the lofty goal of desegregating Troy State College, which would later become Troy University.

By the age of 21, Lewis was riding through the American South to challenge the segregated bus terminals, protesting them by using “whites-only” restrooms and lunch counters alongside the 12 other original Freedom Riders. Hundreds more activists soon joined the movement.

Four years later, in 1965, Lewis and his mentor-turned-friend Martin Luther King Jr. led around 600 civil rights activists in a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma for voting rights. A mass of law enforcement officers met them with bullwhips, clubs, tear gas and violence. The day became known as Bloody Sunday, and the heightened awareness that resulted from it contributed heavily to the passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act , which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson several months later.

Lewis continued his work, gaining more notoriety as the years went by. In 1986, Lewis joined the U.S. House of Representatives, where he became known as the “conscience of Congress.”

“Devoted to equality and justice for all Americans, Lewis spent more than 30 years in Congress steadfastly defending and building on key civil rights gains that he had helped achieve in the 1960s,” the U.S. Postal Service announcement said. “Even in the face of hatred and violence, as well as some 45 arrests, Lewis remained resolute in his commitment to what he liked to call ‘good trouble.’”

Marco Grob was photographing Lewis for Time magazine when he took the image of Lewis that appears on the stamp. The margin paper of the stamps also features a photograph of Lewis taken by Steve Schapiro in 1963 outside of a workshop about nonviolent protest in Clarksdale, Mississippi.

All of the new stamp designs released this week were under the artistic direction of USPS art director Derry Noyes.

One featuring an illustration of a peacock and a woman coming out of her cottage honors children’s book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola. The stamp design is part of the cover of her book “Strega Nona.” DePaola lived from 1934-2020, and his work encompasses folktales and legends, informational books, religious and holiday stories and autobiographical tales.

Other designs include skateboard art, a picturesque image of the Florida Everglades, bridges from across the U.S., a Northern Cardinal bird and images taken with microscopes.

Hadley Hitson covers the rural South for the Montgomery Advertiser and Report for America. She can be reached at hhitson@gannett.com. To support her work, subscribe to the Advertiser or donate to Report for America.

This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Postal service celebrates civil rights icon John Lewis with new stamp