John Lewis Stamp Debuts July 21

John Lewis Stamp Debuts July 21

By Rosaland Tyler

Associate Editor

New Journal and Guide

A postal stamp that honors Georgia Congressman John Lewis recently became one of more than 100 stamps that honor deceased African Americans. 

Recently, Congressional members from both political parties unveiled the new postal stamp during a  June 21 ceremony in Statuary Hall at the Capitol. The new stamp shows Lewis’ photo. It was  snapped by a Time Magazine photographer in 2013.The price of a Forever stamp never changes once it is purchased. The official dedication ceremony for the John Lewis Forever stamp is scheduled for July 21 at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Other tributes to Lewis will include an August renaming ceremony at the main post office in Atlanta. It will be named after Lewis, who died at age 80 in 2020 of Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

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The stamp’s recent debut follows a two-and-a-half year, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort launched by the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation, which is named after Lewis and his late wife, who was 73 when she died in 2012.

“The Foundation reached out to the postal service a couple of weeks after Lewis’ passing in July 2020 because we saw it as an appropriate and great honor to place John Lewis on a commemorative forever stamp,” said Linda Earley Chastang, president and CEO of the John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation.

Lewis’ new forever stamp aims to underscore his lifelong commitment to civic participation. Lewis often used the term ‘“good trouble” to describe his involvement in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. He served as an Atlanta City Council member from 1981-86. He served 33 years as a U.S. congressman before he passed on July 17, 2020.

Lewis’ new postal stamp is one of a hundred or more postal stamps that honor high-profile African Americans including Frederick Douglass, George Washington Carver, Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Harriet Tubman, the Rev. Dr. Martin L. King Jr., Duke Ellington, and Maya Angelou.