Among his early stops was a meeting with his mentor, Martin Luther King Jr. Although his parents felt disgraced by his expanding arrest record, Lewis maintained that he was on a course with destiny. With exposure to James Lawson, Jim Bevel, Diane Nash, and numerous other people who eventually would form the core of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis's quest for justice and equal access soon launched him to the forefront of the American civil rights movement. Lewis's life would change forever when he enrolled at Nashville's American Baptist Theological Seminary. Lewis's parents preached that "decent black folks stayed out of trouble. Though poor, the Lewis family was considered "good people," which meant they were willing to comply with Alabama's social customs.
The third oldest of ten children, Lewis's parents were hard-working, Bible-believing sharecroppers. In his memoir, John Lewis draws from four decades of his own experiences to offer a personal view of the civil rights struggle. Even as a member of the House of Representatives, Lewis continues as a living emblem of the King years. A disciple of King from his collegiate years, Lewis seldom strayed from his mentor's philosophy of nonviolent resistance. Among the survivors, John Lewis personifies more than anyone else the ideological heritage of Martin Luther King Jr. Against this backdrop, Lewis and a handful of Nashville-area college students volunteered to join the fight for freedom.įew are those who remain from the hierarchy of America's contemporary civil rights movement. These questions remained unanswered despite the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, Truman's desegregation of the military, and even the landmark Brown decision of 1954. At issue was what is an inalienable right and who is entitled to receive such rights.
A battle that had been fought with only modest success in the courts during the first half of the twentieth century moved to lunch counters, streets, buses, and bridges. With the country involved in military and materialistic revival, Southern cities fought over the question of segregation. The latter years of Eisenhower's presidency form the starting point for John Lewis's Walking With the Wind. Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement.
Book Review Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
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