; Whereas, at just 23 years old, Mr. Lewis helped organize the 1963 March on Washington, at which— (1) Dr. King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech; and (2) Mr. Lewis vowed, in his address at the Lincoln Memorial, to splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them back together in the image of God and democracy ; Whereas Mr. Lewis led demonstrations against racially segregated hotels, restrooms, swimming pools, and public parks for which he was brutally beaten, left unconscious in his own blood, and arrested 40 times, spending countless nights in county jails and 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary; Whereas, in 1963, as Chair of the SNCC, Mr. Lewis moved to Atlanta, Georgia; Whereas, on March 7, 1965, on what would become known as Bloody Sunday , Mr. Lewis led 600 peaceful demonstrators demanding their right to vote across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where Mr. Lewis, who suffered a fractured skull, and other demonstrators were met with violence and police brutality; Whereas, after televised images of the Bloody Sunday violence in Selma shocked the conscience of the United States, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for equal voting rights legislation before a joint session of Congress, which evolved into his signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 ( 52 U.S.C. 10301 et seq. ) on August 6, 1965; Whereas, on December 21, 1968, Mr. Lewis married the love of his life, Lillian Miles, who was his best friend, closest ally, and most steadfast supporter until her death on December 31, 2012, the 45th anniversary of their meeting; Whereas, in 1970, Mr. Lewis became director of the Voter Education Project, which added nearly 4,000,000 minority voters to the voter rolls and changed the political landscape of the United States forever; Whereas, in 1977, President Jimmy Carter appointed Mr. Lewis to direct more than 250,000 volunteers of ACTION, which was then a Federal volunteer agency