Civil Rights Leader Visits Rochester Area ROCHESTER, NY (WXXI) - Georgia Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis was in the Rochester area Wednesday to address students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges' annual convocation.

Lewis was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, or "snick," during the civil rights era and participated in the Freedom Rides in the deep south. He was an organizer of the march on Washington D.C. in which Martin Luther King Junior delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Lewis says that contemporary civil rights battles deal with race and class as well as environmental quality of the communities where people live. He says he's telling students at Hobart and William Smith to "get in the way" and not be silent -- the opposite of the advice that his parents gave him at the outset of the civil rights movement.

Lewis says that young people need to embrace the principles of nonviolence, just as student leaders did during the civil rights era. He says they need to rise above the example set by the government as it pursues the war in Iraq.
© Copyright 2010, WXXI