WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders unveiled a new stamp Wednesday in a Capitol ceremony commemorating former Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon who served more than three decades in Congress and died in 2020.
The stamp features a photograph of Lewis taken by Marco Grob on assignment for the Aug. 26, 2013, issue of Time magazine.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said commemorative stamps tells stories, honor heroes and capture important moments in history.
Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy of California speaks June 21 on Capitol Hill during the stamp-unveiling ceremony in honor of Rep. John Lewis.
“By adding John Lewis to this collection, we are honoring an extraordinary contribution to the American story and inspiring future generations to follow his lead,” McCarthy said.
Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general of the United States, said the main post office facility in Atlanta would be named after Lewis in an August ceremony. He said the Lewis forever stamp — which can be used to mail a one-ounce letter regardless of when the stamps are purchased or used — will be issued in July.
Lewis was best known for leading some 600 protesters in the Bloody Sunday march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. He also joined the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and four other civil rights leaders in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. He spoke to the vast crowd just before King delivered his epochal “I Have a Dream” speech.
Lewis won his seat in Congress in 1986 and spent much of his career in the minority. After Democrats won control of the House in 2006, Lewis became his party’s senior deputy whip, a behind-the-scenes leadership post in which he helped keep the party unified.
Lewis was a forceful speaker with a booming voice. He would encourage colleagues and young visitors to the Capitol to find what he called “good trouble.”
Rep. Nancy Pelosi D-Calif., shake hands with Michael Collins during the stamp-unveiling ceremony for Rep. John Lewis on Capitol Hill on June 21.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., now the Democratic leader in the House, recalled meeting Lewis on the House floor in January 2013. Lewis called the freshman lawmaker over and told him that Washington can be a rough place. “So, young man, I don't want you to get into any trouble, unless it’s good trouble.”
McCarthy said he visited Selma twice with Lewis, including on the 50th anniversary of the march. He said he got goosebumps and tears that day thinking about how Lewis had been beaten nearly to death simply because he wanted to register people to vote and five decades later was introducing then-President Barack Obama to the crowd.
“He used what was right with America to fix what was going wrong in America,” McCarthy said.
Photos: Remembering Rep. John Lewis, 1940-2020
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FILE - In this Tuesday, May 16, 2006, file photo, Congressional Black Caucus members, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., left, and Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, center, are arrested after a news conference regarding Darfur, at the Sudanese Embassy in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke, File)
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FILE - In this Friday, March 5, 1999, file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., speaks with reporters in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Khue Bui, File)
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FILE - In this Sunday March 4, 2007, file photo, from left, Brown Chapel AME Church Pastor James Jackson, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, and Rev. Clete Kiley, hold hands and sing at the end of a church service in Selma, Ala., on the commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. protest march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Rob Carr, File)
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FILE - In this Feb. 23, 1965, file photo, Wilson Baker, left foreground, public safety director, warns of the dangers of night demonstrations at the start of a march in Selma, Ala. Second from right foreground, is John Lewis of the Student Non-Violent Committee. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - This Aug. 23, 1963, file photo shows John R. Lewis, National Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Committee, at the National Urban League headquarters in New York. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this March 17, 1965, file photo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., fourth from left, foreground, locks arms with his aides as he leads a march of several thousands to the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. From left are: an unidentified woman, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, James Foreman, King, Jesse Douglas Sr., and John Lewis. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this March 7, 1965, file photo, a state trooper swings a billy club at John Lewis, right foreground, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala. Lewis sustained a fractured skull. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/File)
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FILE - In this Thursday, May 10, 2007 file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, R-Ga., in his office on Capitol Hill, in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
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FILE - In this Sept. 6, 2012, file photo, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, of Georgia, speaks to delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
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FILE - In this Friday, Dec. 6, 2019, file photo, civil rights leader U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is extolled at an event with fellow Democrats before passing the Voting Rights Advancement Act to eliminate potential state and local voter suppression laws, at the Capitol in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
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In this June 7, 2020 photo provided by the Executive Office of District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, Mayor Bowser and John Lewis look over a section of 16th Street that's been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. The White House is in the background. Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died. He was 80. (Khalid Naji-Allah/Executive Office of the Mayor via AP)
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In this June 7, 2020 photo provided by the Executive Office of District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, John Lewis looks over a section of 16th Street that's been renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington. The Washington Monument and the White House are visible in the distance. Lewis, a lion of the civil rights movement whose bloody beating by Alabama state troopers in 1965 helped galvanize opposition to racial segregation, and who went on to a long and celebrated career in Congress, died. He was 80. (Khalid Naji-Allah/Executive Office of the Mayor via AP)
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FILE - In this Tuesday night, Sept. 3, 1986, file photo, John Lewis, front left, and his wife, Lillian, holding hands, lead a march of supporters from his campaign headquarters to an Atlanta hotel for a victory party after he defeated Julian Bond in a runoff election for Georgia's 5th Congressional District seat in Atlanta. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Linda Schaeffer, File)
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FILE - In this July 2, 1963, file photo, six leaders of the nation's largest black civil rights organizations pose at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. From left, are: John Lewis, chairman Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee; Whitney Young, national director, Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, president of the Negro American Labor Council; Martin Luther King Jr., president Southern Christian Leadership Conference; James Farmer, Congress of Racial Equality director; and Roy Wilkins, executive secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)
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FILE - In this Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2007, file photo, with the Capitol Dome in the background, U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson, File)
