During her visit to Washington, D.C. to watch the inauguation, Jan. 20, sophomore Kelsey Hart, center, met and spoke with U.S. Rep. John Lewis, left, outside the Hyatt Regency hotel. Congressman Lewis (D-GA), originally from Alabama, was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement and played a key role in the struggle to end segregation.

Hart was visiting her aunt at the Hyatt when Congressman Lewis exited on his way to watch president-elect Barack Obama’s swearing in.

While Hart only had a few minutes to talk to the congressman, she later saw him on stage during the inauguration. Congressman Lewis was the only living speaker at the inauguaration who attended the rally at the March on Washington in August 1963 when Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered the closing address, his famous “I Have a Dream” speech.

“My grandmother, Lula (Hart, right) and I found ourselves in shock at the sight of Congressman Lewis,” Hart said. “I felt the historic importance by being in his presence. The first thing that came to mind was getting a picture with him, and that’s just what I did.”

Lewis was also on the bus when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat in Dec. 1955.

Congressman Lewis was also one of the Freedom riders: He rode a Greyhound bus from Washington, D.C. to New Orleans May 4, 1961 as a challenge to segregation in public transit. The riders, both black and white supporters of the Civil Rights movement, were subjected to violence at a stop in Alabama.

However, according to the Herald Online on Jan. 27, 2009, no one ever apologized for the event until recently. Lewis accepted the apology of a 72-year-old man for the 1961 beatings and Lewis said, “This apology now is the essence of what the (civil rights) movement was all about: the ability of people to change and grow.?

For more information on Kelsey Hart’s trip to the Inauguration, read Ryan Swain’s Jan. 19 article, “Sophomore to attend Inauguration Day.”