A funeral service in the State of Alabama launched this Saturday a series of ceremonies to pay tribute to John Lewis, a figure in the fight for civil rights in the United States, who died of cancer last week in the age of 80.
The public could gather from 11 a.m. (5 p.m. in Paris) at the University of Troy, his hometown, in front of the coffin, wrapped in an American flag, of the former traveling companion of Martin Luther King. Covid-19 pandemic requires, the number of authorized people has been limited to 800 and the wearing of a mask required.
His coffin transported to Selma on Sunday
The son of sharecroppers, John Lewis had become one of the country's most respected voices for justice and equality in the 1960s, before being elected for the first time to the United States Congress in 1986. His coffin will be transported on Sunday morning at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where the former activist nearly succumbed to police in 1965 during a peace march against racial discrimination.
He will rest on Monday under the dome of the Washington Capitol, an honor reserved for the highest American personalities. The public will be able to come and pay him a last tribute on Monday evening and Tuesday, again with a mask and appropriate social distancing.
John Lewis's family have called on Americans not to travel across the country in order to limit the spread of the virus and prioritize online tributes. This series of commemorations will end Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia, a state that the deceased had represented for more than thirty years in Congress. He will be buried there after a private ceremony at the church baptized Ebenezer, where Pastor Martin Luther King had officiated.
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