Obama, Biden, Pelosi, Other Democrats React To Death Of Civil Rights Leader John Lewis

Top Democrats praised the life and work of Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a civil rights icon who died of pancreatic cancer late Friday.

Lewis, 80, had served in the House for more than three decades and helped organize multiple civil rights marches in the 1960s.

“John Lewis was a titan of the civil rights movement whose goodness, faith and bravery transformed our nation – from the determination with which he met discrimination at lunch counters and on Freedom Rides, to the courage he showed as a young man facing down violence and death on Edmund Pettus Bridge, to the moral leadership he brought to the Congress for more than 30 years,” House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said in a statement.

Lewis, the son of Alabama sharecroppers, was 15 years old when Rosa Parks refused to sit in the “colored section” of a bus in 1955. Inspired by this act of defiance, Lewis stood strongly against Jim Crow segregation practices in his youth, and spoke during the 1963 March on Washington, an event where civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. made his historic “I Have A Dream” speech.

“From marching in Selma to serving in the House, Representative John Lewis spent his life fighting for civil rights for every single American. He is an American hero and a giant. And we are all better for the 'good trouble' he made. Rest in peace, John,” Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY., tweeted.

Former President Barack Obama, the first African-American president, also celebrated Lewis’ life.

“John Lewis — one of the original Freedom Riders, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the youngest speaker at the March on Washington, leader of the march from Selma to Montgomery, Member of Congress representing the people of Georgia for 33 years — not only assumed that responsibility, he made it his life’s work,” Obama wrote in a blog post. “He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise. And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden said Lewis taught Americans to “never give up” in the fight for equality. Lewis had been attacked and arrested numerous times, getting his head bashed by an Alabama state trooper on “Bloody Sunday” in 1965.

“John’s life reminds us that the most powerful symbol of what it means to be an American is what we do with the time we have to make real the promise of our nation — that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated equally,” Biden said in a statement. “Through the beatings, the marches, the arrests, the debates on war, peace, and freedom, and the legislative fights for good jobs and health care and the fundamental right to vote, he taught us that while the journey toward equality is not easy, we must be unafraid and never cower and never, ever give up.”

Lewis was first elected to Congress in 1986. He helped pass the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Lewis voted against both the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 Iraq War. He also sought to expand voting rights and frequently criticized current President Donald Trump.

Trump has yet to release a statement in response to Lewis' death.