Remembering John R Lewis, the civil rights leader who championed racial justice

John R Lewis, a civil rights leader who preached non-violence while enduring beatings and jailings during seminal front-line confrontations of the 1960s, and later spent more than three decades in Congress defending the crucial gains he had helped achieve for people of colour, has died. He was 80.

His death was announced in a statement from house speaker Nancy Pelosi. No other details were immediately available. Lewis, a Georgia Democrat, announced his diagnosis of pancreatic cancer on 29 December and said he planned to continue working amid treatment. “I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life,” he said in a statement. “I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.”

While Lewis was not a policy maven as a lawmaker, he served the role of conscience of the Democratic caucus on many matters. His reputation as keeper of the 1960s flame defined his career in Congress.