1st biography of John Lewis is rich and deep
to help create such a community. But by age
17, Lewis was a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville.
Within months, he was active in civil rights demonstrations and had met King and other leaders. He impressed them with his sense of purpose and his courage, and he soon moved into leadership roles himself, first in lunch counter sit-ins and then, at barely 21, as one of the Freedom Riders who defied violent attacks to desegregate public transport in the Deep South in 1961.
In 1963, he would be named chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and speak before a quarter of a million people at the March on Washington, followed by King’s legendary “I
Have a Dream” speech. In 1965, Lewis led a voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in
Selma, Alabama, on what came to be called Bloody Sunday. Photos of the ferocious police response to the nonviolent march, including one of Lewis beaten to the ground by a white officer, shocked the world. Diagnosed with a fractured skull, Lewis nevertheless was back at work days later.
But Arsenault takes us beyond those media moments. He recounts in careful detail the enormous amount of planning, training and cooperation those demonstrations required. Participants not only were educated in the principles of nonviolent resistance but also went through role-playing exercises to learn how to withstand the worst insults and attacks without succumbing to rage. Lewis himself was jailed dozens of times and beaten more times than that, yet he did not retaliate. Throughout his life, people responded to his gentle demeanor and forgiving nature.
Arsenault also delves into the conflicts within the movement as actions jockeyed for power, and he recounts the often fractious relationships and endless negotiations between movement leaders and white politicians, especially the Kennedy brothers.
All of those skills served Lewis well when he transitioned into politics himself. In 1981, he won a seat on the Atlanta City Council. In 1986, he was elected to the U.S. House for the 5th District in Georgia. He was re-elected 18 times and continued to work in Congress, for voting rights and other progressive causes that reflected his sense of the Beloved Community, until shortly before his death from pancreatic cancer.
Less than two months before he died, he warned those who wanted to use military force against Black Lives Matter marchers: “You cannot stop the call of history. You may use troopers, you may use fire hoses and water, but it cannot be stopped. There cannot be any turning back. We’ve come too far, made too much progress, to stop now or to go back.” A few days later, “gaunt and frail,” he visited the massive street mural in the newly renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, near the White House.
His body would lie in state in the U.S. Capitol, and he would be eulogized by three former presidents and honored by countless Americans whose lives he had bettered.
He is honored, too, by this biography and its emphasis on his importance in American history.
Colette Bancroft is a books critic for the Tampa Bay Times.