On Sunday January 18, 2008, Congressman John Lewis will deliver a Martin Luther King Jr. commemorative message at the historic Shiloh Baptist Church.  Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) is the last remaining speaker from the historic March on Washington and the last remaining of the Big Six leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.  In the 1960’s he was chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was arrested and jailed more than 40 times on the front lines of the non-violent struggle for social change in America.  Currently, he serves as the U.S. Representative of the 5th Congressional District in Georgia, Senior Chief Deputy Whip of the Democratic leadership, and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight.  As a legislator, he has remained on the forefront of the call for social change and is often called the “conscience of the U.S. Congress.”

Today the U.S. House of Representatives passed the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill with a 289-139 vote.  Passage of the bill was managed by the House Ways & Means Committee of which Rep. John Lewis is a senior member.   The legislation, formerly vetoed by the Bush Administration provides health insurance for more than 7 million children.   The program  will protect coverage for those children and expand it to include an additional 4 million children who would otherwise be uninsured.  The legislation is paid for through an increase in the federal tobacco tax, as well as a prohibition on kickbacks to physicians from hospitals they own. 

Building toward the holiday celebrating what would have been Martin Luther King Jr.’s 80th birthday, Rep. John Lewis was invited by the Central Intelligence Agency’s office of Diversity Plans and Programs to discuss the King legacy this morning at its headquarters in Langley, Virginia.  Lewis will describe King’s commitment to the cause of non-violent social change, how the philosophy of non-violence was infused through the Civil Rights Movement, and ask listeners to consider its effectiveness as a tool of social transformation.