John Lewis In search of the beloved community

Although John Lewis (1940--2020) was born in Pike County, Alabama, Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to him as "the boy from Troy." That boy had been raised by sharecroppers and was determined to become a minister from a young age: as a four-year-old he preached to the family's chicken flock morning and evening. His mother counseled him to avoid trouble and stay of jail, but in his early twenties as a freedom rider he learned the difference between "good" and "bad" trouble, accepting the necessity of being jailed dozens of times and acknowledging the adage that sometimes the end does justify the means. Lewis made it his lifework to bring to fruition "the Beloved Community," a concept first articulated by American theologian and philosopher Josiah Royce (1865--1916) as a place to bind all people together with equal opportunity to achieve their fullest potential. King made it a cornerstone of his work as well. Early in their association, when King popularized the belief that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice," echoing the sentiments of nineteenth-century Unitarian minister, abolitionist, and leading transcendentalist Theodore Parker, King and Lewis internalized both concepts, holding firm to the hope of achieving justice for all in a world freed from violence. While Lewis's name might be mentioned in classrooms during Black history month, it is likely King and Rosa Parks, sometimes alongside Malcolm X, who typically occupy center stage. This biography by Raymond Arsenault (emer., Univ. of South Florida), which this reviewer hopes is the first of many more to come, should draw John Lewis further out of the shadows. Neither an absolutist nor a man solely focused on race, Lewis supported whoever and whatever would bring the Beloved Community closer to fruition. He refused to bend or be intimidated by any person or action, clinging to his beliefs, however difficult or painful. During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, for example he supported Hilary Clinton for the nomination until she failed to acknowledge the error of her senate vote in favor of the 2003 War with Iraq; as a result, he shifted his endorsement to Barack Obama. Eight years later he was a strong advocate for Hilary Clinton and was shocked and devastated when she lost to Donald Trump. In 2000 Arsenault journeyed to Washington, D.C. to interview Lewis about the Freedom Rides. Nervous, he found the congressman open, engaging and generous with his time, thus sparking a twenty-year friendship. This reviewer can empathize; as a newly minted assistant professor at the University of Alabama after earning my Ph.D., I ventured to Atlanta to interview John Lewis, then executive director of the Voter Education Project, for a paper and article about race and politics in Georgia's capital. Intimidated by his history, experience, and position, I was immediately put at ease by his demeanor and openness. In John Lewis, Arsenault's "intention throughout [is] to avoid hagiography and hero worship" (p. x). Given that Lewis was known to some as "Saint John," it might be appropriate to consider this a critical study of the life of a saint. However, while clearly impressed by the subject's evenhandedness and his accomplishments, Arsenault has not idealized John Lewis, nor does he treat him with excessive or undue adoration. He portrays him as forthright and honest in his dealings with all, friend and foe alike. This comes shining through when Arsenault recounts how Oprah Winfrey invited all living Freedom Riders to commemorate the Freedom Rides' fiftieth anniversary in 2011. In addition to the nearly two hundred riders in the audience, Lewis and half-a-dozen sat on the stage as featured guests. They were joined by Elwin Wilson, who, as a young Ku Klux Klansman, attacked Lewis at the Trailways bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, on May 10, 1961. In 2009, after long regretting his actions, Wilson called Lewis to acknowledge his heinous actions and ask for forgiveness. Lewis invited the former Klansman to a meeting in Washington, D.C., using "the power of love to move from forgiveness to friendship" (p. 371). When the camera focused on Wilson, who was sitting next to Lewis, Wilson lost his composure and appeared ready to flee. Lewis reached out, took his hand and told the world, "He's my brother" (p. 371). The Social Gospel guided Lewis. Formulated in the late nineteenth century by Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch, it called for society to embrace the teachings of Jesus as exemplified by the parable of the Good Samaritan. As a student at Nashville's American Baptist Theological Seminary Lewis learned of Josiah Royce and the Beloved Community. Through King and James Lawson, he was also introduced to the activism of Mohandas Ghandi and the concept of nonviolent civil disobedience. While at college, Lewis developed a deep and abiding friendship with fellow student Bernard LaFayette. After final exams the two young men traveled home to Alabama and Florida by bus, violating the segregation statute by sitting in the front row behind the driver. Inspired by Rosa Parks they refused to move to the back. Though the driver called the police they decided not to intervene. As the driver fumed, they remained in their seats all the way to their destinations. As a student in Nashville Lewis was active in the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, engaging in sit-ins at lunch counters downtown. Although King hoped students in the South would join his Southern Christian Leadership Conference, they instead formed their own organization: the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which Lewis would chair in June 1963, making him one of the "Big Six" for the August March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. When the other leaders read his speech, they forced him to tone it down, but he still managed to get his points across. With a focus on voter registration, Lewis led SNCC in planning a spring 1965 campaign in Selma and Dallas County, Alabama, which, despite an overwhelming Black majority, had only a minuscule number of registered Black voters. King, who was by then commonly referred to as "De Lawd" by younger firebrands, took over the campaign and with Lewis led more than 800 protesters over the Edmund Pettus Bridge where helmeted state police and sheriffs' deputies bludgeoned and blooded the marchers (p. 130). Lewis suffered a fractured skull and a concussion which hospitalized him. Following Bloody Sunday the march, though delayed by legal action and a court order, finally took place from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery, capturing the nation's attention and speeding the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965) later that summer, which was later emasculated. SNCC became more radical, expelling white members as it moved away from Gandhian nonviolence and civil disobedience. In a June 1966 coup Stokely Carmichael became SNCC's chair. Lewis moved on to work for the Field Foundation in New York before returning to Atlanta as a part of the Southern Regional Council's Community Organization Project. There he focused on self-help, resource development and empowerment. When Robert Kennedy entered the 1968 race for the presidency Lewis took a leave of absence to join his campaign, assisting with strategies to win the Black vote. He was with RFK in Indianapolis when word came of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, while participating in a sanitation workers' strike. Though others advised against continuing the scheduled rally, Lewis urged Kennedy to make an impromptu speech that spared the city's Black community from the rioting that broke out elsewhere across the nation. Devastated by the loss of his leader, mentor, and friend, Lewis suffered another blow two months later following Kennedy's assassination in Los Angeles after winning the California primary and likely the Democratic nomination. Lewis returned to Atlanta to become Executive Director of the Voter Education Project for the next six years before entering politics, winning an at-large seat on the Atlanta City Council. Next, he joined President Jimmy Carter's staff for a brief period before leaving to run for the House of Representatives from Georgia's Fifth Congressional District, a seat he held for seventeen terms, from 1987 until his death in 2020. In 1998 Lewis wrote his memoir Walking with the Wind, the title derived from his childhood memories in Georgia--when beset by wind his grandmother's small house rose off the ground. When that occurred Lewis and the other children would run to the lifted corner to hold it down. Beautifully written, the autobiography serves as one of Arsenault's primary sources. This volume under review brings to light this somewhat still unknown leading participant of the modern Civil Rights Movement, from the early days of the Freedom Rides to today's Black Lives Matter movement. Because Lewis knew not the emotion "hate," Arsenault's Chapter 19, "Perilous Times," an anti-Trump harangue, is unworthy of both the author and the memory of John Lewis. Likely those on the far right who are most in need of understanding John Lewis's devotion to bettering the lives of all Americans, might simply dismiss this as the work of a sycophant. Nevertheless, this is a needed new biography of one of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Duncan R. Jamieson, Ashland University

A comprehensive biography of the Civil Rights leader and legislator. A telling anecdote comes early in Arsenault's life of John Lewis (1940-2020), when he traveled to the Capitol to fundraise for a Freedom Rides Museum. Lewis kept the delegation waiting for an hour because he had promised to discuss Civil Rights history with a high school student from Ohio: "The day's schedule had gotten backed up, but Lewis was not about to short-change the boy." Though Lewis became a luminary late in life, his early years were marked by struggle: He was hounded as both a radical and an idealist, and he bore the scars to prove it. One perhaps surprising revelation is the significant divisions within the Civil Rights Movement. Martin Luther King Jr. may be remembered as the iconic leader, but his leadership was heavily contested, and Lewis himself became alienated from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee over the phrase "Black Power." Said Lewis, "As an organization we don't believe in slogans. We believe in programs." After the police riot at the Edmund Pettus Bridge--now meaningfully renamed the John Lewis Bridge--in Selma, Alabama, the movement turned away from Lewis' message of peaceful resistance, but he kept pushing. As Arsenault writes, one reward for his ceaseless efforts was the election of Barack Obama, whom he supported after turning away from old ally Hillary Clinton because of her support of the Iraq War. At the end of his life, Lewis, always inclined to try to find the good in even his fiercest opponents, saw Civil Rights take a giant step backward with the election of Donald Trump: upon Lewis' death, the "only major Republican officeholder to withhold praise for the man others mourned as an American hero." An exemplary biography of an exemplary person, essential to the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.