article_snippet: That Sunday afternoon, 25-year-old John Lewis, then chairman of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and today a U.S. congressman from Georgia's 5th District, had been tear-gassed and billy clubbed as he tried to cross the bridge.
article_snippet: he had emerged as the bravest and youngest of the major civil rights leaders of the Kennedy-Johnson era, even speaking at the March on Washington in 1963.
article_snippet: As a Freedom Rider in the South, he was arrested 24 times, and proud of it.
article_snippet: Certainly, the fact that Barack Obama, an African-American, is U.S. President proves that Lewis didn't get Lewis head dented in vain.