Hours before Barack Obama accepted the Democratic nomination for president at Invesco Field in Denver in 2008, Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) settled into the best seat in the house — front row, dead center. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) came along and sat next to him, and the entire arc of the American civil rights movement seemed contained in the moment.
Jackson, the scion of a legendary civil rights leader sitting next to Lewis, an American icon, waiting to watch Obama make history.
The two hugged. “It was a very moving day for him and myself. We didn’t need to speak in a verbal way,” Lewis, now 72, recalled Thursday.