MONTGOMERY — Troy University’s Office of Sponsored Programs and the Rosa Parks Museum will bring the documentary highlighting the life of Civil Rights hero, human rights champion and Congressional leader John Lewis to Montgomery on March 31 for a free screening.
The screening of “Get in the Way: The Journey of John Lewis,” will be held at 6 p.m. at Troy University’s Davis Theatre for the Performing Arts on the University’s Montgomery Campus. While admission to the event is free, tickets are required for entry and are available online.
A panel discussion featuring Troy University faculty will follow the screening. Participating in the panel will be Dr. Jeneve Brooks, associate professor of sociology at TROY’s Dothan Campus, Dr. Leslie Kathryn Tucker, lecturer of history, and Dr. Dan Puckett, professor of history at the University’s Montgomery Campus. Dr. Felicia Bell, director of the Rosa Parks Museum, will serve as moderator.
Produced and directed by award-winning filmmaker Kathleen Dowdey, the film tells a highly personalized narrative of an epic chapter in U.S. history and emphasizes Lewis’ enduring determination to stand up to injustice and discrimination wherever he finds it using strategy, legislation and direct action.
“Get in the Way” was the winner of the Best Documentary in 2016 at the International Family Film Festival in Los Angeles in 2016, and was selected for the 2016 Woodstock Film Festival, International Black Film Festival and St. Louis International Film Festival.
Lewis, who represents Georgia’s 5th Congressional District, was born the son of sharecroppers in 1940 outside of Troy. Inspired by the activism surrounding the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the words of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis became an active participant within the Civil Rights Movement, organizing student sit-ins at segregated lunch counters in Nashville, Tenn., volunteering to participate in the Freedom Rides and serving as a lead marcher in the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March.
Lewis was elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981, and won election to Congress in 1986, where he has served ever since.
He is the recipient of numerous awards from eminent national and international institutions, including the highest civilian honor granted by President Barack Obama, the Medal of Freedom, the Lincoln Medal from the historic Ford’s Theatre, the Golden Plate Award given by the Academy of Excellence, the Preservation Hero award given by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the Capital Award of the National Council of La Raza, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Non-Violent Peace Prize, the President’s Medal of Georgetown University, the NAACP Spingarn Medal, the National Education Association Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award, and the only John F. Kennedy “Profile in Courage Award” for Lifetime Achievement ever granted by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
For additional information about the screening, contact the museum at 334-241-8615.
