US Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon serving his 17th term in Congress, turns 80 on Friday, February 21.

       He has represented Georgia's 5th Congressional District, which includes much of Atlanta, since 1986.

       In the 1960s, Lewis was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. It was one of the groups that organized the 1963 March on Washington, and Lewis was the youngest keynote speaker at the historic event.

       In 1965, Lewis helped organize the Selma to Montgomery marches, which were held to protest discriminatory practices that prevented many black people from voting in the South. He suffered a fractured skull when Alabama state troopers used brutal force to break up the march.

       By his own count, Lewis was arrested more than 40 times during his days of civil rights activism.

       "Time and again, he faced down death so that all of us could share equally in the joys of life," said President Barack Obama in 2011, when he awarded Lewis the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

       In December, Lewis' office announced that he has been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer.