Editor's note: As the nation mourns the loss of late Congressman John Lewis, we turn the clock back to May 2012, when lawyer-writer Thomas Scheffey, a current member of the Connecticut Law Tribune's editorial board, interviewed the famed civil rights leader ahead of several speaking engagements, including an address to the Connecticut Bar Association to conclude a year-long presidential series on equal protection. 

U.S. Rep. John Lewis was one of the 13 original Freedom Riders in the Civil Rights movement to end institutionalized racial segregation. At 23, he was also the youngest speaker at the 1963 march on Washington, D.C., in which Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Lewis earned his place among the movement's leader by leading protest marches that were intended to be peaceful but often ended in violence at the hands of Alabama state troopers. His skull was fractured and he was repeatedly left unconscious and gravely injured. He still bears visible scars. On 24 occasions, he was arrested; at one point, he was imprisoned for 40 days.