Obama Delivers Stirring Eulogy at John Lewis Funeral Service: ‘A Man of Pure Joy and Unbreakable Perseverance’

Former President Barack Obama delivered a stirring eulogy at late congressman John Lewis’ (D- GA) funeral service in the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Thursday — focusing on his perseverance, his greatness, and his humility.

Lewis passed earlier this month at the age of 80 after a battle with Stage IV pancreatic cancer. His body was escorted across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama on Sunday, the same bridge Lewis was beaten on by a Georgia state trooper in 1965, during a march later known as “Bloody Sunday.”

50 years following “Bloody Sunday,” in March 2015, Obama and Lewis joined thousands of Americans in Selma, Alabama to honor those who bled there.

Lewis, who was often referred to as the “conscience of the Congress,” was both an original Freedom Rider and the youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963. In 2011, Obama awarded Lewis with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the former president has often referred to the late congressman as his hero.

“It is a great honor to be back at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and the pulpit of its greatest pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., to pay my respects to perhaps his finest disciple,” Obama said in his eulogy. “An American whose faith was tested again and again to produce a man of pure joy and unbreakable perseverance. John Robert Lewis.”

Obama addressed the obstacles Lewis faced during his fight for civil rights, noting his multiple arrests and the abuse he faced throughout the era.

“He and other young men and women sat at a segregated lunch counter, well-dressed, straight-backed, refusing to let a milkshake port on their heads were a cigarette extinguished on their backs, or a foot aimed at their ribs, refuse to let that dent their dignity and their sense of purpose.

Obama addressed the “Bloody Sunday” March in his speech — noting the brutality that Lewis and so many other men and women faced at the hands of law enforcement and calling them “victims in their own country.”

“At the ripe old age of 25, John was asked to lead the march from Selma to Montgomery. He was warned that Governor Wallace had troopers to use violence. But he, Hosea Williams, and others led them across that bridge anyway,” Obama said, later guessing that the troopers must have thought they won that day.  “And you look at those pictures, and John looks so young. And he is small in stature. Look, in every bit shy, serious child his mother raised, and yet he was full of purpose.”

“When John woke up and checked himself out of the hospital, he would make sure the world saw a movement that was, in the words of scripture, hard-pressed on every side, but not crushed,” Obama added to applause. “Perplexed, but not in despair. Persecuted by not abandoned. Swept down, but not destroyed.”

Obama has thanked Lewis for his own accomplishments in the past, reportedly telling him he “was only there because of the sacrifices he made” during his inauguration in 2008.

“Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did,” Obama said in his previous statement following Lewis’ death. “Thanks to him, we now all have our marching orders — to keep believing in the possibility of remaking this country we love until it lives up to its full promise.”

The former president noted that despite his accomplishments, Lewis was gentle and humble and believed that anyone could produce courage, greatness, and a “willingness to love all people.” Lewis believed that despite violence and despair, any person can rise again.

The president addressed current events and police brutality in the U.S., faulting current President Donald Trump, while avoiding his name, for deploying federal agents in American cities and undermining U.S. democracy and freedom.

“Bull Connor may be gone, but today we witness with our own eyes police officers kneeling on the necks of black Americans. George Wallace may be gone, but we can witness our federal government sending agents to use tear gas against peaceful demonstrators,” Obama said of today’s political climate.

“We may no longer have to guess the number of jelly beans in a jar in order to cast a ballot, but even as we sit here, there are those in power who are doing their darndest to discourage people from voting by closing polling locations and targeting minorities and students with restrictive I.D. laws and attacking our voting rights with surgical precision, even undermining the postal service in the run-up to an election that’s going to be dependent on mail-in ballots so people don’t get sick,” Obama added.

“Now, I know this is a celebration of John’s life. There are some who might say we shouldn’t dwell on such things. But that’s what I am talking about it. John Lewis devoted his time on this Earth fighting the very attacks on democracy and what’s best in America that we are seeing circulate right now.”

Obama later proposed making election day a holiday to ensure everyone can vote — encouraging everyone to exercise their right to vote. He suggested allowing former inmates and Puerto Ricans to vote in every election and urged granting Washington D.C. statehood.

“You want to honor John, let’s honor him by revitalizing the law he was willing to die for. And by the way, naming it the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, that is a fine tribute, but John wouldn’t want us to stop there, just trying to get back to where we already were,” Obama said. “Once we pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, we should keep marching to make it even better.”

Former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also delivered speeches during the funeral, both praising the efforts Lewis made to fight for human rights throughout his life.

Watch above, via CNN.