July 29 (UPI) — U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, was hospitalized Saturday in Atlanta after becoming ill on a flight.
WSB-TV reported Lewis, 78, was expected at an event Saturday afternoon in Atlanta but didn’t show.
On Saturday, Lewis’ office said in a statement: “Rep. John Lewis is in the hospital tonight for routine observation. He’s resting comfortably and expects to be released tomorrow.”
Lewis, a civil rights icon, was first elected to the House of Representatives in 1986. He serves Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, which includes much of the city of Atlanta.
He was born the son of sharecroppers on Feb. 21, 1940, outside Troy, Alabama.
He was the keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963.
In March 1965, was a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee when he joined forces with Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a voting rights march out out Selma, Ala. They were confronted by heavily armed state troopers and local police. Lewis was photographed under assault and sustained a fractured skull.
President Barack Obama presented Lewis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in February 2011.
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