Rep. John Lewis Honored For Civil Rights Work

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WASHINGTON - As lifetime awards go, U.S. Rep. John Lewis couldn't have received one at a better time.

Sunday night, the Atlanta Democrat received the Martin Luther King Jr. Drum Major Award for his work as a civil rights activist.

"I want to thank Dr. King for liberating me and for giving me something to stand up for," Lewis said. "We can all be drum majors for justice."

The honor came on the eve of the holiday honoring the award's namesake and two days before the nation seats its first African-American president.

King's oldest son, the Rev. Martin Luther King III, hosted the gala through his Realizing the Dream foundation.

Marian Wright Edelman, a child health care advocate and founder of the Children's Defense Fund, said as she presented Lewis with the Drum Major Award, "He's the living example to all of us about the need for persistence and courage. Just as Dr. King inspired him, he inspires me and all of us."

The award is given to an individual whose life champions the ideals the slain civil rights leader championed.

The foundation also honored U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.); San Antonio civil rights activist the Rev. Claude Black; and Nobel Peace Prize winner Daw Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar.

"My father would be so proud of these four individuals," the younger King said.

Lewis, who was part of the senior King's inner circle, couldn't help but note the significance of Barack Obama taking the presidential oath following the day honoring the slain civil rights leader.

He said he was impressed with the crowds - estimates range into the millions - coming to Washington for Obama's inauguration. Referring to the 1963 March on Washington, Lewis said the inauguration would not have happened without King's work.

"I was there that day, standing next to Dr. King in front of the Lincoln Memorial when he said, ‘I have a dream,'" Lewis said. "Forty-five years later, we come back to Washington one more time, to inaugurate the first African-American president of the United States."

"If it hadn't been for your father, I wouldn't be standing here today. Barack Obama wouldn't be standing here today," Lewis told King's son.

The civil rights legend's son said the inauguration festivities complemented his father's holiday. "There's a victorious feeling in the air," he said.

His sister Bernice also noted the confluence.

"It's a great honor to my father that the inauguration would occur now," she said before the event. "To me, it continues to speak to the richness of my father's legacy. What better way to celebrate than Americans from all walks of life coming together to be a part of this celebration, putting aside our differences?"

She found Biblical parallels to Obama's rise, noting the 40 years between her father's assassination and Obama's election.

"The children of Israel wandered in wilderness for 40 years after coming out of Egypt," she said. "If you consider that Martin King was the Moses of his people, I don't look at Obama as the Joshua, but he reflects the coming into the Joshua [generation] of his people."