District 4 Supervisor Rod Woullard asked the Forrest County Board of Supervisors at their regular meeting on Monday to take a moment to honor the late John Lewis, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and longtime civil rights leader.
“We lost a great statesman,” said Woullard. “I hope we all take the time to pray for his family and remember him.”
Board Attorney David Miller shared a photo of Lewis at a voter registration event in downtown Hattiesburg from Freedom Day in January 1964.
Lewis and other civil rights activists later started the Mississippi Summer Project, or Freedom Summer, in June of that year.
The project aimed to register as many African American voters in Mississippi as possible.
Lewis was 80 years old when he died of pancreatic cancer over the weekend.
He served 17 terms in the House of Representatives and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2011.
Upon announcement of his death, Hattiesburg city officials lowered government flags to half-mast in a sign of honor and remembrance for the role Lewis played in Hattiesburg’s history.
