OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Community activist and UNO instructor Preston Love, Jr. issued a statement remembering his friend U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon who died of pancreatic cancer on Friday.
As one of the "Big Six" civil rights activists, Lewis helped organize the 1963 March on Washington.
In 1965, Lewis led hundreds of protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in what is known as the Bloody Sunday march.
Lewis represented Georgia's 5th congressional district since 1987 and served 17 terms in the House of Representatives.
"John Lewis was my friend since 1979... he was the same man all the time I knew him," Omaha activist Preston Love, Jr. said in an e-mail Friday night.
All U.S. and Nebraska flags are to be flown at half-staff until sunset on Saturday in honor of Lewis.
