Whereas John Robert Lewis (referred to in this preamble as Mr. Lewis ) was born on February 21, 1940, near Troy, Alabama, the third of 10 children born to his mother Willie Mae (née Carter) and his father Eddie Lewis, a sharecropper; Whereas, at 5 years old, Mr. Lewis was given responsibility for the family chicken flock, including his favorite, Li’l Pullet, which he tended to with great care and to which he would preach nearly every evening, which— (1) led his family to give Mr. Lewis the childhood nickname of Preacher ; and (2) instilled in Mr. Lewis an early desire to enter the clergy; Whereas, from a young age, Mr. Lewis insisted on attending school daily, defying his parents’ instructions to work the family farm, which established within Mr. Lewis a lifelong commitment to education and enlightenment; Whereas when Mr. Lewis was 15 years old he was shaken to the core , as described in his memoir Walking With the Wind , by the Mississippi murder of Emmett Till, deepening his passionate opposition to segregation and Jim Crow laws; Whereas, as a high school student, Mr. Lewis intensely followed the progress of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (referred to in this preamble as the Boycott ) in 1955 and 1956, awakening him to the power of nonviolent resistance to segregation; Whereas Mr. Lewis wrote in his memoir that the Boycott changed my life more than any other event before or since ; Whereas, while following the progress of the Boycott, Mr. Lewis was inspired by radio broadcasts featuring one of the leaders of the Boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (referred to in this preamble as Dr. King )— (1) whom Mr. Lewis’ parents referred to as that young preacher ; and (2) whose example deepened Mr. Lewis’ ambition to become a minister