Founded 1988
" An International Stamp Society, honoring the African Diaspora and African Americans on stamps"
Our 36th Year
The Selma to Montgomery marches, including Bloody Sunday, were three marches that marked the political and emotional peak of the American Civil Rights Movement. Within five months after the third march, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The cover is by Kendal Bevil.
The cachet on this Fleetwood cover for the 1965 Selma March bears a striking resemblance to a young John Lewis.
This BGC cover for the 1965 Selma March shows Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King and John Lewis to the far right.
The Coverscape cover (left) and the KSC Cachets cover (right) commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. On that day, an estimated 600 civil rights marchers, led by John Lewis and Hosea Williams, attempted to cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge leading out of Selma, Alabama, where a wall of some 150 Alabama state troopers, sheriff ’s deputies, and possemen ordered the demonstrators to disperse. One minute and five seconds after a two-minute warning was announced, the troops advanced, wielding clubs, bullwhips, and tear gas and plowed over the demonstrators. John Lewis, who suffered a skull fracture, was one of 58 people treated for injuries at the local hospital.
The 6° Cachets by Don Neal cover commemorates John Legend and Common for winning the 2015 Oscar for Best Original Song for their song “Glory” from the Oscar-nominated film Selma, a film based on events that happened 50 years before. In the film, John Lewis was portrayed by Stephan James whose film credits include Race (he portrayed Jesse Owens), If Beale Street Could Talk (based on the James Baldwin novel of the same name), and 21 Bridges.
A week before Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, John Lewis, a Congressman since 1987, announced that Trump would not be his president and that he would not afford him any of the respect that comes with the office. President Trump later reciprocated that disrespect by not attending John Lewis’ funeral. The cover is by CoveRage.
On August 23rd, 2013, John Lewis appropriately attended the first-day-of-issue ceremony for the March on Washington stamp. The ESPER cover captures that moment in its cachet and also connects to Lewis’ birth state, Alabama, and coins one of his famous quotes.
On September 2, 1986, in a battle between two giants of the Civil Rights Movement, former Atlanta City Councilman John Lewis upset state Senator Julian Bond by a 52-48 percent margin in the Democratic runoff in Georgia's 5th Congressional District. This memorial cover for Julian Bond is by 6° Cachets by Don Neal.
John Lewis had a connection to Dorothy Height, the “Godmother of the Civil Rights Movement,” whose Black Heritage stamp was issued February 1, 2017. The 6° Cachets by Don Neal cover also depicts other milestones in Lewis’ life.
Another John Lewis memorial cover is franked with the March on Washington stamp. The cover is by 6° Cachets by Don Neal.
John Lewis lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, the first African-American elected official to do so. The cover by Pete Sarmiento is postmarked on that date and also connects Lewis to the Black Lives Matter movement. Lewis made one of his last public appearances at the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, D.C.