ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Quote, "When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act."
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A few words from the late civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis written before he died and published today in The New York Times. Today, the conscience of the Congress was eulogized and laid to rest in the former church of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta.
SHAPIRO: Social justice was his lifelong calling. Here he was two years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN LEWIS: Give us a vote. Let us vote. We came here to do our job. We came here to work.
SHAPIRO: From hearing the words of Dr. Martin Luther King as a teen to organizing sit-ins at lunch counters in the segregated South and the floor of Congress, John Lewis put his body on the line for democracy and decency.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEWIS: On March 7, 1965, I gave a little blood on the Edmund Pettus Bridge for the right to vote.
CHANG: The boy from Troy fought for justice for over six decades by raising what he called good trouble, necessary trouble.
SHAPIRO: John Robert Lewis was 80 years old when he died two weeks ago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.