Lewis’ body is scheduled to arrive in the nation’s capital city late Monday morning. The hearse carrying his casket will make several stops before reaching its final destination at the U.S. Capitol, where a private memorial service is to begin at 1:30 p.m. ET. Congressional lawmakers and politicians are among those expected to attend the proceedings.
The memorial service, as well as events scheduled to precede and follow it, will be available to watch online and on television. Viewers can access digital live streams and broadcasts via CBS News and C-SPAN. Live streams and TV airings will begin 30 minutes before the afternoon service.
Monday’s private memorial ceremony will take place inside the Capitol’s historic rotunda. The Reverend Grainger Browning Jr., of Maryland’s Ebenezer African Methodist Episcopal Church in Fort Washington, will deliver the ceremony’s invocation, according to The New York Times. Remarks from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will follow Browning’s opening prayer. Lewis is the first Black lawmaker to lie in state in the Capitol rotunda, the Times said.
Members of the public can pay their respects in person later Monday evening. Following the afternoon’s memorial ceremony, Lewis’ body will be transferred to the Capitol steps for a viewing, held outdoors to minimize risk of coronavirus transmission. The public will be permitted to visit between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. ET on Monday, and between 8 a.m. and 10 p.m. ET on Tuesday.
Given concerns about the coronavirus, Lewis’ family has encouraged the public to pay their respects virtually.
Lewis’ commemoration events in Washington, D.C., will follow others that took place across Alabama over the weekend. On Sunday, his casket crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, during a memorial event that drew in-person crowds and online tributes. The symbolic procession came more than 50 years after Lewis was nearly killed by state troopers and police while helping to lead a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. The incident became known as Bloody Sunday.
Calls to rename the Pettus Bridge after Lewis have received widespread support since his death earlier this month. It is currently named after a Ku Klux Klan leader and former Confederate soldier, Edmund Pettus.
Additional memorial ceremonies will take place in Atlanta to honor Lewis on Wednesday and Thursday.
Lewis died at 80 years old on July 17, roughly seven months after he was diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer.
