What do you think was truly going through the mind of U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) Tuesday afternoon?

There he was, sitting in a room at the White House, in front of friends and family, colleagues and media and just moments away from receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our country’s highest civilian honor.

What do you think was going through his mind? What was he thinking about?

Nearly 46 years to the day, Lewis was preparing to participate in a march from Selma to Montgomery to promote equal voting rights. He was a student, an activist, a young man with a passion for what was right.

Almost 46 years to the day, he would be nearly beaten to death by participating in that march; a march forever etched in the history books as “Bloody Sunday.”

Except for Lewis his thoughts are not from any history book, they are from his life, a life that was honored Tuesday by our country’s first African-American president.

If only we could have heard the thoughts racing through his head as he stepped forward to receive the medal. What would we have heard?

The basis of our democracy — our representative form of government — is the right to vote; the equal right to vote. It is the concept that each of us has an equal say in the government that leads us.

For Lewis and the hundreds of other activists who stood alongside him on that Sunday in March 1965, and who were no doubt in Lewis’ thoughts Tuesday, that right was worth the sweat, the effort and yes, the blood.