John Robert Lewis was a civil rights leader and chairman of the SNCC that was born in Troy, Alabama in 1940. Lewis started partaken in Nashville sit-ins and Freedom Rides while he was a seminary student at the American Baptist Theological Seminary. He was one of the speakers at the March on Washington. His speech was about how the Kennedy administration proposal of the civil right bill was to late. On March 7, 1965, he led the first march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Lewis also was a leader of the last march from Selma to Montgomery. He decided to leave the SNCC, when it became more militant. He became involved in other organizations and projects, such as the (VEP) Voter Education Project. Lewis was elected into Congress, representing Georgia's Fifth Congressional District. He went on to be reelected four more times.