John Robert Lewis has died after a six-month battle with cancer, according to a statement from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.<br />Lewis is the son of sharecroppers.<br />He survived a brutal beating by police during a landmark 1965 march in Selma, Alabama.<br />He became a figure of the civil rights movement and a longtime US congressman.<br />Lewis was a follower and colleague of Martin Luther King Jr.<br />He participated in lunch counter sit-ins, joined the Freedom Riders in challenging segregated buses.<br />At the age of 23 -- was a keynote speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington.
