President Trump on Saturday ordered flags lowered to half-staff at the White House, public buildings and military posts following the death of civil rights icon and longtime congressman Rep. John Lewis.
Trump issued the proclamation saying the act was “a mark of respect for the memory and longstanding public service” of Lewis.
Rep. John Lewis died at the age of 80 on Friday.
The congressman and civil rights icon had been undergoing treatment in his battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
Lewis, a Democrat, served 17 terms in the House of Representatives, representing Georgia’s 5th congressional district since 1987.
Along with Martin Luther King Jr., Lewis was one of the “Big Six” civil rights activists who organized the March on Washington in 1963. Lewis was perhaps best known for leading hundreds of protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965.
