“The late U.S. Rep. John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, for the final time Sunday as remembrances continue for the civil rights icon. The bridge became a landmark in the fight for racial justice when Lewis and other civil rights marchers were beaten there 55 years ago on ‘Bloody Sunday,’ a key event that helped galvanize support for the passage of the Voting Rights Act.” (AP News)

Both sides praise Lewis and his legacy:

When John Lewis left us, editorials and columns paid tribute to his leadership, his courage, his moral example. The praise was well deserved. A broader context helps understand his true contribution.

John Lewis was born one of 10 children of a sharecropper in Troy, Alabama. He should be remembered now as one of the founding fathers of American democracy. When he led that famous march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, America was not yet a full democracy.

This Abridge News topic aggregates four unique arguments on different sides of the debate. Here are the quick facts to get you started:

THE QUICK FACTS

We spend the hour looking at the bloody struggle to obtain — and protect — voting rights in the U.S. with the civil rights icon, now 13-term Georgia congressmember, John Lewis. During the 1960s, Rep. Lewis was arrested more than 40 times and beaten almost to death as he served as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, marched side by side with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., helped organize the Freedom Rides, campaigned for Robert Kennedy’s presidential bid, and spoke at the 1963 March on Washington.

Rep. John Lewis of Georgia died late Friday at the age of 80.

He was a civil rights icon and had served in the House of Representatives since 1987. Before entering US politics, Lewis championed desegregation and was one of the original Freedom Riders, a group of civil rights activists who rode interstate buses through the South to demonstrate against segregated bus terminals.

Georgia Rep. John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement, has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The Democratic congressman will stay in office while he undergoes treatment, his office announced on Sunday.

"I have been in some kind of fight — for freedom, equality, basic human rights — for nearly my entire life. I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now," Lewis said in a statement.

The 79-year-old says the diagnosis was made during a routine medical visit this month.

Throughout the years Rep. John Lewis has repeatedly leveled scurrilous accusations against Republicans who might resist the liberal agenda. And all along, Lewis has been shielded from retaliatory criticism by both his race and his 1960’s record of civil rights activism.

John Lewis is probably not the person you want to accuse of “all talk, no action” if you’re the big-talking, Twitter-triggered president-elect of the United States. Lewis is a leader of the civil rights movement and 30-year veteran of the House of Representatives; he’s a Presidential Medal of Freedom winner and an American hero.

The Twitter feud between Donald Trump and civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis dominated political chatter in Washington over the weekend, highlighting questions of legitimacy and racism that Democrats hope will dog the next administration.

Days before his inauguration, President-elect Donald J. Trump is engaged in a high-profile feud with some of the country’s most prominent African-American leaders, setting off anger in a constituency already wary of him after a contentious presidential campaign.