Xinhua News Agency, Washington, July 18th (Reporter Xu Jianmei and Deng Xianlai) John Lewis, a leader of the US Civil Rights Movement and a member of the Democratic Congress, died of illness late at night and was 80 years old. The US government and the public mourned one after another, and President Trump ordered the flag to be half-hearted on the 18th.
According to Trump's order, all public buildings, military bases at home and abroad, U.S. embassies and consulates in the United States and navy ships lowered their flags by half at that day, expressing condolences for Lewis' death.
White House Press Secretary McNani issued a statement on the 18th, saying that Lewis is "the icon of the American Civil Rights Movement," leaving an immortal legacy that will never be forgotten.
Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives and Democrat, said that Lewis is "a giant of the American civil rights movement." The American people should turn their mourning into an incentive and continue to fight racial and social injustice.
Biden, the US Democratic presidential candidate, McConnell, leader of the Senate Majority Party (Republican), and former presidents Obama, Bush, Clinton and Carter also issued statements in condolences.
Lewis is African American and was born in Alabama in the southern United States in February 1940. In the American anti-apartheid movement of the 1960s, he served as chairman of the Student Non-Violence Coordination Committee, and organized the march to Washington in August 1963 with the leader of the American Black People’s Rights Movement, Martin Luther King and others. activity. Lewis was elected to the House of Representatives of the Democratic Party in Georgia in 1987 and was re-elected until his death. In December 2019, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.