UPDATE 3 former presidents mourn John Lewis at funeral in Atlanta
The arc of Lewis' legacy of activism was once again tied to Ebenezer's former pastor Martin Luther King Jr., whose sermons Lewis discovered while scanning the radio dial as a 15-year-old boy growing up in then-segregated Alabama.
Hundreds of people gathered outside Ebenezer to watch the service on a large screen outside the church. Some sang the gospel song "We Shall Overcome." King was "the person who, more than any other, continued to influence my life, who made me who I was," Lewis wrote in his 1998 autobiography, "Walking with the Wind."
"To those who have said, `Be patient and wait,' we have long said that we cannot be patient," he added. "We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again."
Shortly before he died, Lewis wrote an essay for The New York Times and asked that it be published on the day of his funeral. In the piece published Thursday, Lewis recalled the teachings of King:
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