Emory University Law School is honoring Atlanta civil rights hero and congressman John Lewis with an endowed civil rights professorship that will be called the John Lewis Chair in Civil Rights and Social Justice.

Emory Law's dean, Robert Schapiro, announced the new professorship, funded by a $1.5 million anonymous gift, on Monday evening at an event on diversity in the legal profession that drew a crowd of about 130 lawyers and students.

The law school will raise an additional $500,000 to fully fund the chair, and it will conduct a national search to find a civil rights scholar of the stature to fill it.