BELTON, Texas (KWTX) - Dozens of marchers gathered in downtown Belton Friday night to honor the legacy of the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis and to push for changes to federal voting rights law.

It has been six years since Lewis died, but his legacy brought marchers out to walk from the Bell County Courthouse to Mount Zion United Methodist Church, echoing the kind of peaceful protest Lewis became known for.

Ron Jupiter, with the Bell County Coalition of Black Democrats, said Lewis "gave blood, sweat and tears for what he believed in" and called him "the living example of what we all should aspire to be."Lewis rose to national prominence in 1965 when he led marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where state troopers beat them in what became known as "Bloody Sunday." That march helped push Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.