Michael Vick traveled to Washington D.C. this week to meet with U.S. Congressman and Civil Rights Hero John Lewis. Rep. Lewis has dedicated his life to protecting human rights, securing civil liberties and building what he calls "The Beloved Community" in America.
During his visit with Lewis, Vick introduced Team Freedom Outreach, a charity that recruits volunteers to play sports with children who are incarcerated. Team Freedom Outreach is a non-profit volunteer organization with a mission to create a movement of Christian men impacting the lives of young boys through recreation and one-on-one visitation.
At Team Freedom Outreach, volunteers spend time with the juveniles in detention centers and enrich their lives through sports and physical activity. Such interaction provides the youth with morally strong, male role-models.
"Many of these children who are incarcerated receive no visitors," said Vick. "Team Freedom Outreach gives them positive mentorship. It shows these kids that somebody cares. It helps them make a plan."
Lewis helped forefront one of the most seminal moments of the Civil Rights Movement, assisting lead over 600 orderly protestors across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala. on March 7, 1965 to demonstrate the need for voting rights in the state.
The marchers were attacked by Alabama state troopers in a brutal confrontation that became known as "Bloody Sunday." News broadcasts and photographs revealing the senseless cruelty of the segregated South helped hasten the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lewis played a key role in the struggle to end legalized racial discrimination and segregation.
