{"id":23394,"date":"2024-06-05T10:32:03","date_gmt":"2024-06-05T14:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/?post_type=press-releases&p=23394"},"modified":"2024-06-05T10:32:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-05T14:32:04","slug":"sens-ossoff-rev-warnock-delivering-funding-to-honor-preserve-congressman-john-lewis-legacy","status":"publish","type":"press-releases","link":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/press-releases\/sens-ossoff-rev-warnock-delivering-funding-to-honor-preserve-congressman-john-lewis-legacy\/","title":{"rendered":"Sens. Ossoff, Rev. Warnock Delivering Funding to Honor & Preserve Congressman John Lewis\u2019 Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atlanta, Ga. <\/strong>\u2014 U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock are helping preserve and protect the late Congressman John Lewis\u2019 legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Sens. Ossoff and Rev. Warnock announced they are delivering Federal funding to the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation to help digitize and protect the late Congressman\u2019s archives and teachings from his time in Congress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This funding will help preserve and showcase a number of invaluable documents and materials left by Congressman Lewis. Housed at the National Archives, the digitization of these materials will provide access for students, historians, academics, and individuals worldwide to study and explore Congressman Lewis\u2019 commitment to justice and equality for all and his lifelong commitment to peace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The digitization will also launch the development of a virtual center and serve as the basis of a physical space in Atlanta for leadership and professional development as well as civic engagement through the Good Trouble curriculum designed to inspire and empower young people for generations to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sens. Ossoff and Rev. Warnock brought Republicans and Democrats together to deliver $595,000 for the project through this year\u2019s bipartisan government funding package.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongressman Lewis\u2019 life-long commitment to civil rights, nonviolence, and universal human dignity remain essential to local, national, and global progress. No one\u2019s ideas or approach to public life have had more of an impact on me than Congressman Lewis,\u201d Sen. Ossoff said<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s imperative we protect and preserve Congressman Lewis\u2019 teachings and records to help inspire future generations and to protect his legacy. That\u2019s why Senator Reverend Warnock and I brought Republicans and Democrats together to support the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation\u2019s ongoing project to curate, digitize, and protect Congressman Lewis\u2019 records and archives. I thank CEO Detria Austin Everson, Chair Michael Collins, the Lewis family, and the entire organization for bringing this proposal to our offices and for their continued work to protect and preserve Congressman Lewis\u2019 legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was Congressman Lewis\u2019 pastor, but I\u2019m clear he was my mentor. The night before I presided over his funeral, as I was considering what I would say, I asked myself what he may have been thinking when he crossed Selma\u2019s Edmund Pettus Bridge, encountering all that violence? Certainly he was just trying to stay alive so he could live and fight another day, but somehow, by some stroke of grace mingled with human determination, he managed to cross a bridge and build a bridge to the future at the same time,\u201d said Senator Warnock, who is also the Senior Pastor of Atlanta\u2019s Ebenezer Baptist Church, of which Lewis was a member. <\/strong>\u201cHe is one of Georgia\u2019s greatest sons and he taught us all how to make \u2018good trouble,\u201d which is why I was proud to work with Senator Ossoff to secure these federal funds for the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation so that future generations may learn and benefit from the lessons of his life and his tireless work to advance democracy, equality and justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am very excited about the Foundation\u2019s plans to protect, preserve and make available to the public my father\u2019s documents and materials from his time in Congress,\u201d said Congressman Lewis\u2019 son, John-Miles Lewis. <\/strong>\u201cDad did so much, in so many ways for so many. Students, researchers, activists and policymakers can learn from this collection of materials what he tried to do and why, as well as what he was able to accomplish and how.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCongressman Lewis used to always say \u2018use me for good.\u2019 That is exactly what we are doing with this project, giving researchers, lawmakers, teachers, historians and students access to all of his work while in Congress for 34 years. The letters he wrote and received, the speeches he made, the bills he sponsored, backgrounders, etc. \u2014 all will be available online to the public,\u201d said Michael Collins, Board Chair for the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are honored to be entrusted with this work of illuminating Congressman Lewis\u2019 remarkable legacy \u2014 including his pivotal role as a civil rights icon tirelessly advocating to strengthen our nation’s democracy and his 34-year tenure in Congress,\u201d said Detria Everson, the Foundation\u2019s President and CEO.<\/strong> \u201cWe are proud to carry his work forward and get into what Congressman Lewis called ‘good trouble, necessary trouble’.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # #<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atlanta, Ga. \u2014 U.S. Senators Jon Ossoff and Reverend Raphael Warnock are helping preserve and protect the late Congressman John Lewis\u2019 legacy. Today, Sens. Ossoff and Rev. Warnock announced they are delivering Federal funding to the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation to help digitize and protect the late Congressman\u2019s archives and teachings from his time […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23394","press-releases","type-press-releases","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/23394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/press-releases"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/23394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23396,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/press_releases\/23394\/revisions\/23396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ossoff.senate.gov\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}