"I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete." -John Lewis

Yesterday, John Robert Lewis, the son of sharecroppers who survived a brutal beating by police during a landmark 1965 march in Selma, Alabama, to become a towering figure of the civil rights movement and a longtime US congressman, passed away after a six-month battle with cancer. He was 80.

The world has lost more than an icon.  We lost a man whose courage and dedication transcended race, gender, language, and time. 

The following is an excerpt from CNN's tribute to this iconic man:

"A follower and colleague of Martin Luther King Jr., he participated in lunch counter sit-ins, joined the Freedom Riders in challenging segregated buses and -- at the age of 23 -- was a keynote speaker at the historic 1963 March on Washington.
 
"Sometimes when I look back and think about it, how did we do what we did? How did we succeed? We didn't have a website. We didn't have a cellular telephone," Lewis has said of the civil rights movement.

"But I felt when we were sitting in at those lunch counter stools, or going on the Freedom Ride, or marching from Selma to Montgomery, there was a power and a force. God Almighty was there with us."

Lewis has said King inspired his activism. Angered by the unfairness of the Jim Crow South, he launched what he called "good trouble" with organized protests and sit-ins. In the early 1960s, he was a Freedom Rider, challenging segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South and in the nation's capital.

"We do not want our freedom gradual; we want to be free now," he said at the time.

At age 25, Lewis helped lead a march for voting rights on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, where he and other marchers were met by heavily armed state and local police who attacked them with clubs, fracturing Lewis' skull. Images from that "Bloody Sunday" shocked the nation and galvanized support for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

"I gave a little blood on that bridge," he said years later. "I thought I was going to die. I thought I saw death."

Despite the attack and other beatings, Lewis never lost his activist spirit, taking it from protests to politics. He was elected to the Atlanta city council in 1981, then to Congress six years later.

Once in Washington, he focused on fighting against poverty and helping younger generations by improving education and health care. He also co-wrote a series of graphic novels about the civil rights movement, which won him a National Book Award." - CNN 

On July 22 at 4 pm, the Fairfax County School Board is accepting public comment on the renaming of Robert E. Lee High School. Name selection by the FX School Board will happen on July 23. Currently, Legacy and Central Springfield is being strongly considered as the new name. That is not our story. A legacy is what you leave behind. It is not a name. Rather, the new chosen name must reflect hope for the future. 

Renaming the High School, the Congressman John Robert Lewis High School would be a fantastic tribute. Students and the community would have the opportunity to learn about and be inspired by Congressman Lewis's lifetime of dedication to Justice. It would be a tribute to his legacy and an example for others to follow in this country. 

It is time we hold up true leaders who build bridges and not walls as examples for our students. They are our future and they will lead us.

I only hope we can live up to the example that Congressman Lewis set. Please join in honoring his legacy and sign this petition today!

Kelly Hebron