Conversations

Behind the Cover

he photo on the cover of this week’s issue shows the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis as a 23-year-old civil rights activist in Clarksdale, Miss., just weeks before he was to speak at the 1963 March on Washington. One of Lewis’ favorite photos of himself, it was taken by Steve Schapiro who was then on assignment photographing civil rights activists for LIFE magazine. “You see he’s looking forward with an enormous amount of strength, in terms of how he sees the future,” says Schapiro, now 85 and living in Chicago. “It’s a picture of someone who knows who he is,