Barack Obama delivers eulogy at Rep. John Lewis’ funeral

Former President Barack Obama delive​red the eulogy at Rep. John Lewis’ funeral Thursday afternoon, the nation’s first African American president saying he owed a “great debt” to the civil rights icon.

The 44th president followed speeches from former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“I’ve come here today because I like so many Americans owe a great debt to John Lewis, and his forceful vision of freedom,” the former commander-in-chief said at the beginning of his eulogy.

“Now this country is a constant work in progress. We’re born with instructions to form a more perfect union, and explicit in those words is the idea that we’re imperfect,” he continued, “What gives each new generation purpose is to take up the unfinished work of the last and carry it further than any might have thought possible.”

Lewis, Obama said, was “a mentor to young people, including me at the time — until his final day on this earth, he not only embraced that responsibility, but he made it his life’s work.”