By Bob Benenson

Rep. John Lewis was an official with which civil rights group during the famed Selma-to-Montgomery march?

a) CORE

b) SNCC

c) NAACP

d) SCLC

Answer: b) Lewis was the 25-year-old chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, or SNCC, when African-American activists under the leadership of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. sought in March 1965 to march from the Alabama city of Selma to the state capital of Montgomery to press for the voting rights of which most Southern blacks had historically been deprive.

The initial attempt to stage the march was broken up violently by Alabama state troopers and local police, with Lewis beaten and suffering serious head wounds in the attack. But the march went ahead successfully later that month under the protection of Alabama National Guard troops federalized by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was sympathetic to the civil rights cause.

The harsh treatment of the civil rights protesters during the first attempted march was regarded as a turning point in creating public support for efforts to enact a federal voting rights law, which Johnson signed into law in August 1965.

Lewis lost an initial bid for a U.S. House seat in 1977. But he won a seat on the Atlanta city council in 1981, then won a dramatic 1986 primary victory over fellow civil rights movement veteran Julian Bond that sent him on his way to fill the House seat in Georgia’s Atlanta-based 5th Congressional District in which he has been a fixture ever since.

Lewis will play a major role in the closing night program at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Denver, which coincides with the 45th anniversary of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the 1963 civil rights march on Washington. Lewis will lead a tribute to that event at the Invesco Field football stadium, which will precede the presidential nomination acceptance speech by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — who is seeking to become the nation’s first African-American president.