"In the fell clutch of circumstance
"I have not winced nor cried aloud.
"Under the bludgeonings of chance
"My head is bloody, but unbowed."
Tybre Faw read with a calm conviction.
That the Lewis family chose young Tybre, who met the man he calls his hero in Selma two years ago, to read a poem Lewis' sister remembers her brother reading around the house was the embodiment of his legacy.
The words of the poem Lewis loved when he was Trybre's age are almost a prophecy to the pain he endured as a leader in the civil rights movement.
"It matters not how strait the gate
"How charged with punishments the scroll
"I am the master of my fate
"I am the captain of my soul," the poem concluded.
"John Lewis was my hero, my friend. Let's honor him by getting in good trouble," Tybre added, leaving the lectern trying to hold back his tears.
It was a fitting tribute for Lewis, who was always a champion of young people with passion, since he too was practically a child when he wrote Martin Luther King, Jr., saying he was inspired to change the world, and received a bus ticket in return.
"When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war," Lewis wrote in a powerful piece helped to be published the morning of his funeral.
Lewis clearly saw Tybre Faw as a special part of that next generation.
The beginning of a friendship
Tybre met his idol John Lewis in Selma, Alabama, in March of 2018. We were there covering the annual civil rights pilgrimage that Lewis led when we saw Tybre standing outside a church where Lewis was attending a service. He held a sign that read, "Thank you Rep. John Lewis. You have shown me how to have courage."
When we talked to Tybre, we learned that he had asked his grandmothers to drive him seven hours from his Johnson City home to Selma in the hopes of meeting the man mentioned in the books about the civil rights movement that the boy regularly checked out from the library and devoured.
We connected Tybre and his grandmothers to Lewis' staff and they brought him to the back entrance of the church where the congressman would be exiting.
Tybre's eyes welled up with tears the minute he saw Lewis, who came over, read the sign and hugged him as he spoke quietly to the boy who hung on every word. None of us who witnessed the meeting could keep from crying. Even Capitol Police officers there -- trained to be stoic -- were unable to hold back their tears.
It was one of the most powerful moments any of us had ever witnessed, and we all knew it.
'We can't afford this light to burn out ...'
We played video of that moment during one of our on-air reports Saturday morning after Lewis died, and Nathan Morris of the musical group Boyz II Men saw it, was moved to tears himself, and contacted us asking about Tybre.<
