John Lewis Hospitalized Update: The Georgia Congressman Fell Ill

Georgia’s Democratic Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights movement icon, was expected to be released from an Atlanta-area hospital on Sunday.

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Lewis was undergoing routine observation after becoming ill Saturday on a plane, CNN reported.

“There is no cause for alarm. He will be fine. He’s resting comfortably and expects to be released tomorrow,” the congressman’s spokeswoman Brenda Jones told ABC News in an email.

Lewis was reportedly on a flight from Detroit when he started feeling dizzy and sweaty. He was expected to appear at an Atlanta event but did not attend.

The 78-year-old lawmaker, who was first elected to Congress in 1986, represents Georgia’s 5th Congressional District that includes a large portion of Atlanta. He has been among the most vocal opponents of Republican President Donald Trump. Following a series of Trump’s racist acts, including supporting white supremacists in 2017 who rallied in Charlottesville, the veteran congressman announced in January that he planned to boycott the president’s annual address to the nation.

“In good conscience, I can not and will not sit there and listen at him as he gives the State of the Union address,” Lewis said on ABC News’ This Week.

Lewis has been honored for his role in the civil rights movement. President Barack Obama presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in 2010.

As a young activist and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, in March 1965, he worked alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to lead a voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. Images of Lewis from “Bloody Sunday,” in which heavily armed state troopers and local police beat the nonviolent demonstrators as they attempted to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, are part of his legacy of fighting for freedom and equality.

Best wishes for a full and speedy recovery to Rep. Lewis.

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