A new John Lewis Statute was unveiled on August 24, 2024. At age 25 in 1965, John Lewis led a peaceful march of around 600 from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. At the beginning of March, they had to cross the bridge you see in the painting. While crossing, they were met by state troopers on horseback. The troopers charged the marchers, beating them with clubs, batons, and rifle buts. Lewis was beaten nearly to death with a cracked skull and concussion. He tried to get up but was beaten again.

This is my painting of John Lewis. He was a gentle giant of our moral compass who encouraged everyone to stand up and cause some “good trouble.” He’s standing in front of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Selma, AL

Tyler Estep, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, wrote that a statute of the civil rights icon replaced a monument to the Confederacy smack in the middle of Decatur, Georgia, where we lived for many years.

Here is what he had to say about John Lewis and the John Lewis statute (A.M. ATL, by Tyler Estep, August 26, 2024).

A new statue of the late Congressman John Lewis now stands outside DeKalb County’s historic courthouse, right off the downtown Decatur square. 

Civil Rights Icon

It’s a fitting tribute to a civil rights hero who represented the area and loved its people — and an apt replacement for a Confederate monument that stood in the same spot for more than a century. 

• “It absolutely represents looking forward and taking down something that was a divider in the community,” Decatur Mayor Patti Garrett told the AJC. “This is something that brings people together, that recognizes the legacy of John Lewis but also recognizes what he stood for.”

Perhaps appropriately, political will and a bit of “good trouble” helped lay the groundwork. 

Way back in 1908, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a 30-foot obelisk (a tapering pointy thing, like the Washington Monument) outside the courthouse. 

Like other monuments across the country, historians say, its aim was to help whitewash the causes of the Civil War and remind Black Americans who was in charge. 

The placement? Not a coincidence. 

Fast forward to 2020 and protests over the death of George Floyd, police violence and systemic racism. The Decatur obelisk became a target for activists (and their graffiti). 

Removing Confederate Monument

Leaders quietly went to court and got Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger to deem the obelisk a “public nuisance.”

• Right, wrong or indifferent, the declaration ordered the county to remove the monument — circumventing state law protecting such shrines. (Confederacy fans later sued, but it was a lost cause.)
• The obelisk came down in the wee hours of June 19, 2020. The Juneteenth holiday.

Lewis died the next month. The obelisk-replacing option was obvious. 

A few years of fundraising (and hard work by sculptor Basil Watson) led to the recent unveiling. 

“He was all love,” said Michael Collins, Lewis’ former chief of staff. “He loved me unconditionally. He accepted me unconditionally, and he said it every day. He said it to everybody.”