US civil rights pioneer John Lewis dies

US lawmaker John Lewis, a pioneer of the civil rights movement and long-time member of the US House of Representatives, has died, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Saturday.

Lewis, who had announced last year that he had advanced pancreatic cancer, was 80.

Born the son of sharecroppers in 1940 in Alabama, Lewis was one of the original Freedom Riders who fought segregation on the US transportation system in the early 1960s, eventually becoming one of the nation's most powerful voices for justice and equality.

He was also the youngest and last survivor of the Big Six civil rights activists, a group led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that had the greatest impact on the movement.

He was best known for leading some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

In 1963, Lewis marched on Washington with King Jr. and, two years later, nearly died from a bloody beating by Alabama state troopers. His campaigning and suffering helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation.

In December, he announced that he had stage-four pancreatic cancer, and pledged to fight it while continuing to serve his constituents in the 5th congressional district of Georgia.

"I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now," he wrote in a statement at the time.

Source: Deutsche Welle