They also sought to drum up public support for the upcoming commemorative March on Washington, scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., on August 24, 2013.
“They would say, ‘That’s the way it is. Don’t get in trouble.’ But one day, I was inspired to get in the way and get in trouble,” said Rep. John Lewis, who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream Speech.”
Lewis, who was beaten in Selma in 1965 by Alabama State troopers as he tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, received the National Urban League’s Civil Rights Champion Award.
“For more than 50 years I have been getting into what I call good trouble, necessary trouble,” Lewis said.
