TROY, Alabama — Troy University has dedicated a university building named for late Congressman John Lewis, who had tried unsuccessfully to attend the then-all white school in the 1950s.
The Troy University Board of Trustees in August voted to rename historic Bibb Graves Hall - named for a former Alabama governor who had ties to the Ku Klux Klan - in honor of Lewis.
While Lewis became a longtime Georgia congressman, he was a native of Pike County, Alabama, and grew up not far from the university.
The civil rights icon died of cancer July 17 at the age of 80.
Lewis as a teen applied to the then-all-white university but did not get a reply.