Introduction
John Lewis was a remarkable figure in American history - a civil rights icon, a long-serving congressman, and a tireless advocate for justice and equality. In "His Truth Is Marching On," acclaimed author Jon Meacham provides an intimate and compelling portrait of Lewis's life and legacy. Drawing on extensive interviews and in-depth research, Meacham traces Lewis's journey from humble beginnings as the son of sharecroppers in rural Alabama to his pivotal role in the civil rights movement and his decades of service in Congress.
This book offers a gripping account of how one man's unwavering convictions and courage helped change the course of history. It provides a window into the turbulent era of the civil rights struggle while also exploring the personal faith and philosophy that guided Lewis throughout his life. Through Lewis's story, we gain insight into the power of nonviolent resistance, the importance of hope in the face of adversity, and the ongoing fight for justice and equality in America.
Early Life and Awakening to Injustice
John Lewis was born in 1940 just outside Troy, Alabama. He grew up in a poor sharecropping family, living in a small three-room house with no electricity or running water. From a young age, Lewis and his siblings had to help out on the farm, tending to the chickens, cotton, and corn.
While life was difficult at home, Lewis soon realized that the world beyond the farm held even harsher realities for Black Americans in the Jim Crow South. Segregation was strictly enforced, with separate and unequal facilities for Black and white citizens. African Americans faced severe barriers to voting and had little protection from racist violence and intimidation.
As a child, Lewis became acutely aware of these injustices. He noticed how run-down his all-Black school was compared to the school for white children. He witnessed the fear and caution his parents exhibited when interacting with white people. These early experiences planted the seeds of Lewis's lifelong commitment to fighting for equality and civil rights.
One source of hope and inspiration for the young Lewis was his faith. His family attended the Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal church, where Lewis fell in love with the rituals, community, and especially the powerful preaching. As a child, he would practice delivering impassioned sermons to the chickens on his family's farm, honing the oratorical skills that would later serve him well as an activist and politician.
In 1955, at the age of 15, Lewis had a transformative experience when he first heard Martin Luther King Jr. speak on the radio. King preached about the social gospel - the idea that true Christianity involved not just preparing for the afterlife, but working to improve conditions and fight injustice in the present world. This message resonated deeply with Lewis and helped shape his understanding of how faith could be a force for social change.
The mid-1950s marked a pivotal time in the emerging civil rights movement. Lewis was deeply affected by events like the brutal murder of Emmett Till in 1955, Rosa Parks' arrest for refusing to give up her bus seat that same year, and the violent resistance to school integration in places like Little Rock. These incidents, combined with his own experiences of segregation and King's inspiring words, awakened in Lewis a determination to join the fight for justice and equality.
Embracing Nonviolent Resistance
In 1957, Lewis enrolled at American Baptist Theological Seminary (now American Baptist College) in Nashville, Tennessee. There, he connected with other students who shared his passion for applying their faith toward overturning segregation. However, they were still unsure of the best way to pursue this goal.
A turning point came in 1958 when Reverend James Lawson Jr. visited the school to lead a series of workshops. Lawson was a committed pacifist who had studied under Mahatma Gandhi in India. He introduced Lewis and other students to the principles and tactics of nonviolent resistance. Lawson argued that it was possible to transform society through passive resistance, meeting hate with love and using peaceful demonstrations to force political change.
These teachings had a profound impact on Lewis. In 1960, he became involved with the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which put Lawson's philosophy into practice through sit-ins and other nonviolent protests. By February of that year, Lewis was helping to organize and lead sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and movie theaters around Nashville.
Participating in these demonstrations required tremendous courage. Lewis and his fellow activists faced harsh retaliation, including verbal abuse, physical attacks, and arrests. In one horrifying incident, Lewis and his friend James Bevel were locked inside a restaurant by the white owner, who then pumped poisonous gas into the building. Despite the very real dangers, Lewis remained committed to nonviolent protest as a powerful tool for change.
The sit-in movement slowly began to have an impact, gaining national attention and building momentum for the broader civil rights struggle. Lewis's unwavering dedication to nonviolence in the face of brutality became a hallmark of his activism. It was a principle he would adhere to throughout his life, even in the face of escalating violence and calls for more militant tactics from some quarters of the movement.
The Freedom Rides
In 1961, Lewis participated in one of the most famous and dangerous initiatives of the civil rights movement - the Freedom Rides. These were organized in response to a 1960 Supreme Court ruling that mandated the desegregation of all interstate travel facilities. Despite this ruling, bus stations and other facilities throughout the South remained strictly segregated.
To test and draw attention to the lack of enforcement of the court's decision, civil rights organizations planned a series of bus trips through the South. Integrated groups of Black and white activists would travel together and attempt to use segregated facilities along the way.
When Lewis learned of the Freedom Rides in March 1961, he immediately volunteered to participate. In April, he traveled to Washington D.C. to join one of the first buses. He was paired with Albert Bigelow, a white Quaker, and they set out with a dozen other activists on a planned journey to New Orleans.
The Freedom Riders encountered violent resistance almost immediately. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, Lewis and Bigelow were viciously beaten by a gang of white men for attempting to enter a whites-only waiting area. True to their nonviolent principles, they declined to press charges and instead offered their attackers forgiveness.
As the Riders ventured deeper into the South, the violence escalated dramatically. Outside Anniston, Alabama, one bus was firebombed by members of the Ku Klux Klan. In Birmingham, a mob of white supremacists attacked the Riders with pipes and bricks. The city's notoriously racist public safety commissioner, Bull Connor, then had the battered Riders driven out of the state and abandoned on the side of a highway.
Despite the brutal attacks, Lewis and the other Freedom Riders persevered. They returned to Birmingham the next day to continue their journey. Their courage in the face of violence drew national attention to the realities of racism in the South. The Kennedy administration was eventually forced to intervene, sending the National Guard to protect the Riders.
The Freedom Rides marked a crucial turning point in the civil rights movement. They demonstrated the power of nonviolent direct action to expose injustice and force change. For Lewis personally, the experience further cemented his commitment to the cause and established him as a leader within the movement.
The March on Washington
Lewis's prominence in the civil rights movement continued to grow. In June 1963, at just 23 years old, he was elected chairman of SNCC. This elevated position brought him into direct contact with other movement leaders and even the highest levels of government.
That summer, Lewis traveled with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders to meet with President John F. Kennedy at the White House. The topic of discussion was the planned March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Kennedy was wary of the demonstration, fearing it might derail the proposed Civil Rights Act that was being debated in Congress. However, King and the other leaders, including Lewis, insisted that the march was necessary to build public support and pressure lawmakers to act.
The March on Washington took place on August 28, 1963. It drew hundreds of thousands of people to the National Mall and became one of the most iconic moments of the civil rights movement. As chairman of SNCC, Lewis was invited to deliver a speech alongside other movement leaders.
Lewis's speech was a powerful call to action. In just seven minutes, he passionately demanded that political leaders live up to their promises of equality and urged them to take immediate action rather than continuing to defer progress. The fiery tone of his original draft had to be somewhat tempered at the insistence of other leaders who feared alienating potential allies. Nevertheless, Lewis's words still rang out with moral urgency and helped establish him as a voice to be reckoned with.
Today, the March on Washington is widely regarded as a turning point in the struggle for civil rights. At the time, however, it was quite controversial. Polls showed that only about 25% of Americans approved of the march, with nearly three-quarters believing it would hurt rather than help the cause. The courage and conviction of Lewis and the other speakers that day helped shift public opinion and build momentum for landmark civil rights legislation.
Turbulent Times and Continued Struggle
The period following the March on Washington brought both progress and heartbreak for the civil rights movement. Just weeks after the march, on September 15, 1963, members of the Ku Klux Klan bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The attack killed four young girls and injured many others. It was a stark reminder of the violent resistance to change that still existed.
More tragedy followed in November with the assassination of President Kennedy. However, his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, proved to be a powerful if complicated ally for the civil rights cause. In July 1964, Johnson signed the landmark Civil Rights Act into law, fulfilling one of the key demands of the movement.
That summer, Lewis worked on SNCC's Freedom Summer initiative in Mississippi, helping to register Black voters. The project faced fierce and often violent opposition. In June, three young civil rights workers - James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner - were murdered by Klan members, shocking the nation.
These ongoing acts of brutality led some activists to question the movement's commitment to nonviolence. Leaders like Malcolm X criticized the approach as ineffective in the face of such vicious opposition. However, Lewis maintained his faith in nonviolent resistance as the most powerful and morally correct path forward.
Lewis's relationship with President Johnson was complex. While grateful for Johnson's support of civil rights legislation, Lewis and other activists were frustrated by what they saw as the president's overly cautious approach at times. For instance, when civil rights groups pushed for integrated delegations at the 1964 Democratic Convention, Johnson withheld his support, fearing political backlash.
The growing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War created another point of tension. SNCC officially denounced the conflict, arguing that it was hypocritical to fight for civil rights at home while denying the rights of Vietnamese people abroad. Lewis, a committed pacifist, registered as a conscientious objector to the draft.
Despite these disagreements, Lewis and Johnson maintained a working relationship. Both recognized the need to cooperate to achieve further progress on civil rights, even if they sometimes differed on strategy and priorities.
Selma and the Voting Rights Act
While the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a major victory, it did not fully address the issue of voting rights. Many Southern states continued to use various tactics to disenfranchise Black voters, including literacy tests, poll taxes, and outright intimidation. Civil rights leaders recognized the need for additional federal legislation to protect voting rights.
To build support for such legislation, movement leaders planned a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in early 1965. On March 7, Lewis and over 600 other activists attempted to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. They were met by a wall of state troopers who viciously attacked the peaceful demonstrators with clubs, tear gas, and whips.
Lewis himself was beaten unconscious, suffering a fractured skull. The brutality was captured by news cameras and broadcast to a horrified nation. The events of "Bloody Sunday," as it came to be known, galvanized public opinion and spurred President Johnson to action.
In a speech before Congress just over a week later, Johnson forcefully called for new voting rights legislation. He framed the issue as a moral imperative, declaring "We shall overcome" - echoing the anthem of the civil rights movement. The combination of grassroots activism and presidential leadership proved effective. On August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.
This legislation prohibited discriminatory voting practices and gave the federal government new powers to enforce voting rights. It was a crowning achievement of the civil rights movement and a personal triumph for Lewis, who had quite literally bled for the cause.
On the day the Act was signed, Johnson invited Lewis and other civil rights leaders to the White House. After congratulating them on their hard-won victory, the president turned to Lewis and said, "Now, John, you've got to go back and get all those folks registered." It was a recognition that while an important battle had been won, the struggle for full equality and political participation was far from over.
From Activist to Politician
As the 1960s progressed, the civil rights movement entered a new phase. With basic constitutional rights secured through legislation, a new generation of activists began to focus on addressing more systemic and structural forms of racism. Some, like Stokely Carmichael who succeeded Lewis as chairman of SNCC, pushed for more militant tactics and embraced the concept of "Black Power."
Lewis, while maintaining his commitment to nonviolence and integration, also evolved his approach. He became increasingly involved in electoral politics, seeing it as another avenue to pursue change. In 1968, he worked on Black voter outreach for Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign.
In 1977, Lewis made his first run for Congress but was unsuccessful. Undeterred, he won a seat on the Atlanta City Council in 1981. Then in 1986, he defeated his old friend and fellow civil rights activist Julian Bond in a hard-fought primary to win Georgia's 5th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
As a congressman, Lewis never lost sight of his roots in the civil rights movement. He continued to see his role as that of an activist, using his position to fight for justice and equality. Throughout his long tenure in Congress, he remained willing to engage in acts of civil disobedience when he felt it was necessary.
Lewis was arrested multiple times for participating in protests and sit-ins during his years in Congress. He was arrested twice at the South African embassy in Washington D.C. while protesting apartheid. He was arrested two more times at the Sudanese embassy for protesting the genocide in Darfur. In 2016, at the age of 76, he led a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives to demand action on gun control legislation.
These actions earned Lewis the nickname "the conscience of the Congress." He was widely respected across party lines for his moral authority and his lifelong commitment to nonviolent struggle for justice. Even those who disagreed with his politics recognized his integrity and the historic role he had played in shaping modern America.
Legacy and Continuing Struggle
John Lewis passed away on July 17, 2020, at the age of 80. His death came in the midst of a new wave of protests against racial injustice, sparked by the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. While unable to join the demonstrations due to his age and health, Lewis expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement, seeing it as a continuation of the work he had dedicated his life to.
In his final years, Lewis was increasingly recognized as a living link to the civil rights era and a moral beacon for a new generation of activists. At a commemoration of the Selma marches in 2015, President Barack Obama paid tribute to Lewis, saying, "Our job is easier because somebody already got us through that first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge."
Lewis himself remained optimistic about the future, even as he recognized the ongoing challenges facing the country. He often spoke of the need for "good trouble" - the idea that creating positive change sometimes requires disrupting the status quo and standing up to injustice, even at personal risk.
In his last public statement, released shortly after his death, Lewis wrote: "Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe." He encouraged Americans to continue the fight for justice and equality, seeing it as an ongoing journey rather than a destination already reached.
Lewis's life story serves as a powerful reminder of how much can be achieved through perseverance, courage, and an unwavering commitment to one's principles. From his humble beginnings in rural Alabama to his role as a key figure in some of the most pivotal moments of the 20th century, Lewis never lost sight of his ultimate goal: creating a more just and equitable society for all.
His example continues to inspire new generations of activists and leaders. The battles Lewis fought - against racial discrimination, voter suppression, and economic inequality - remain relevant today. His methods of nonviolent resistance and his emphasis on the power of love to overcome hate offer a model for addressing these ongoing challenges.
Conclusion
"His Truth Is Marching On" provides a compelling portrait of John Lewis and the turbulent era he helped shape. Through Lewis's story, we gain insight into the courage and determination required to stand up to injustice, the power of nonviolent resistance to effect change, and the importance of hope and perseverance in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
Jon Meacham's account brings to life the dangers and difficulties faced by civil rights activists in the 1960s, while also exploring the personal faith and philosophy that sustained Lewis throughout his long career. The book offers a nuanced look at the complex political landscape of the civil rights era, including the sometimes tense relationships between different factions of the movement and between activists and political leaders.
Lewis emerges from these pages as a man of extraordinary principle and courage, someone who never wavered in his commitment to justice even when it came at great personal cost. His journey from the son of sharecroppers to a revered statesman and civil rights icon is a quintessentially American story of perseverance and the power of ideals.
At the same time, Lewis's story reminds us that the work of creating a more just and equitable society is never finished. The struggles he faced - against racial discrimination, voter suppression, economic inequality - continue in new forms today. His life offers both inspiration and a blueprint for how to approach these ongoing challenges.
In an era of deep political divisions and renewed racial tensions, Lewis's emphasis on nonviolence, his ability to maintain hope in the face of setbacks, and his unwavering belief in the possibility of progress offer valuable lessons. His legacy challenges us all to find the courage to stand up for our convictions, to engage in "good trouble" when necessary, and to never lose sight of the beloved community we are striving to create.
As we reflect on John Lewis's remarkable life and legacy, we are reminded of the power of individuals to shape history and the ongoing responsibility we all share to continue the march toward justice and equality. His truth, indeed, is still marching on.