John Lewis    A Life

A Biography of the Distinguished Congressman from Atlanta.

Written by:
Lewis Whittington
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David Greenberg’s new biography of John Lewis includes a photograph of the Congressman at age 80, on site at the Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC in 2020. It was the summer of George Floyd’s murders and the onslaught of Covid-19. Lewis wore a mask and a cap with ‘1619 – 400 yrs’ signage referencing America’s slave-trading past. Lewis died just weeks after the photograph was taken. up to the end and had been for six decades- as a student activist, a clergy member, head of SNNC and a liberal firebrand who fought for everyone’s rights in congress representing Atlanta’s Fifth District. Greenberg’s bio is a dimensional portrait of the man, his mission, and his tumultuous times.


He was a lead organizer of the march for Voting Rights in 1965 from Selma to Montgomery, but ended on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where hundreds of activists were driven back, attacked, and terrorized by Alabama State trooper, Lewis was almost bludgeoned to death, suffered multiple injuries including a concussive head wound. ABC interrupted their broadcast of ‘Judgement at Nuremberg’ to cover the standoff between Selma officials and racist mobs. Bloody Sunday as it was dubbed was a galvanizing event that was so brutal that it forced the Johnson Administration to intercede which led to the Voting Rights Act to become law.


Lewis was born in Pike County Alabama in 1940, his parents Eddie and Willa Mae, were 2nd generation sharecroppers raising their 10 children dealing with the oppressive realities of Jim Crow. Even as a young man he reacted to the indignities of that craven system by doing what he could in to protest racism. When he heard Martin Luther King speak about civil rights in a radio address, Lewis was inspired to do more.


At 17 he received a seminarian scholarship in Nashville, and although he excelled in the program, he came to be disillusioned by the prospect of ministering from the about justice from the pulpit. It became his priority to confront segregation with direct action.


Aside from religious and academic studies, Lewis was studied the teachings Mahatma Ghandi  and his methods of nonviolent direct action. Lewis was soon immersed in what he termed ‘good trouble’ to confront Jim Crow era segregation, the KKK and other racist entities in the South. Writing from jail after being arrested for his activism instead of delivering a senior year assignment, Lewis wrote the school:
 “On this day in which I am scheduled to preach my senior sermon, and also the day of my 21st birthday, I find myself behind bars with 27 other hungry freedom fighters for the fifth time in less than a year. For acting as a freeman in an unredeemed society, I’m fully convinced that the true way to bear witness to the truth is to preach through action also, and not by faith alone.”


Lewis also joined the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) who sponsored the interracial group of Freedom Riders. Writing to the CORE director  Gordon Carrie Field,  that while he hoped to graduate in June, the mission of the Freedom Rides mattered more to him than even his education.


He was on the Greyhound traveling from Nashville to Montgomery, where they were met with violence from the KKK and white mobs. In the wake of brutal attacks, including setting the bus on fire and barring the doors.


He was just 23 years old when he was in the Oval Office with national civil-rights leaders A. Phillip Randolf, Julian Bond, Martin Luther King there to persuade a reticent President Kennedy to support the 1963 March on Washington. Also in the room was the architect of the March on Washington activist Bayard Rustin, who was asked to leave the room. Rustin was gay and was being vilified within the movement as a liability to King. Lewis was incensed at how Rustin was being treated. Early on, Lewis was an unapologetic ally to the gay community.


  Throughout the book, Greenberg’s vivid ‘you are there’  reporting on Lewis’ confrontations with racist cops, rabid segregationists, disingenuous politicians, and even intractable presidents, is detailed and gripping.


Lewis became director of SNNC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Lewis accepted the leadership role and moved to  Atlanta. After the tumultuous ‘Summer of Freedom’ leaving SNCC members exhausted and despondent, superstar Harry Belafonte provided funds for SNCC members to travel to Africa, first to Guinea to meet Belafonte’s friend president Sekou Toure and to meet their contemporaries in the West African civil-rights movement (La Jeunesse). It was the first time Lewis and many of the members had traveled to Africa. And the experience changed his world view and his perspectives on America’s versions of apartheid.


After returning to the US, Lewis faced a leadership crisis at SNCC where members were critical of his trip. Lewis spent a year in Manhattan as associate director of the Field Foundation of New York, but there he felt adrift. He was thrilled for Jullian Bond’s win in the Georgia Legislature. He returned to Atlanta taking a job as director of Southern Regional Council’s Community Organization Project. And he jumped into campaigning for RFK’s bid for the presidency after LBJ dropped out.


 Initially doubtful about Kennedy’s commitment to progressive black politics, he believed Kennedy when he said he was now on board. Devastated by the assassination of MLK, Lewis was with Kennedy in Los Angelos when he was assassinated after finishing a campaign speech at the Plaza Hotel in 1968.


 After LBJ bowed out of running for a second term and with Nixon’s victory in 1968, Lewis decided to run for Atlanta’s 5th district. He won endorsements up and down the political ranks and was endorsed by Atlantan editorial boards as the unity candidate, but it wasn’t enough and lost to a white establishment candidate who also supported equal rights initiatives.


Within the various organizations Lewis was widely admired for his character and his civil-rights initiatives, but by 1963 his colleagues were looking for more consequential tactics that would end segregation and unconditional equal rights for Black America.


The next election cycle he was facing off with Julian Bond. Greenberg’s chapter ‘John vs. Julian’ tracks their close friendship going back decades. But they were now in a pitched political battle to represent Atlanta’s 5th District Congressional seat. Bond was by now a media savvy, celebrity politician and Lewis the reserved, and doggedly non-confrontational challenger. But Lewis soon realized this was going to be a bare-knuckle battle if he was going to win. Things got personal on both sides and their friendship was, for all intents, over. Greenberg’s account of their contest is a fascinating deconstruction of the hard-boiled politics that sullied all involved.


 As consequential as Lewis’ role in the civil-rights movement of the 60s, his years in politics and showdowns and achievements in the halls of Congress are equally inspiring. Lewis’ tenure in Congress representing Atlanta’s 5th district.


Greenberg’s narrative loses a little steam in the last chapters of the book, but he covers a checklist of Lewis’innumerable political, humanitarian and legislative achievements. But past that granular detailing, this biography is by ever measure, masterful. On balance an engrossing portrait of a once in a generation activist politician who remained true to his causes and remained a transformative man of the people.


 And it is a bitter irony indeed that in 2024, Republican legislators were moving a slate of schemes aimed at suppressing or intimidating voters of color who were democrats and independents. . This book is, objectively, a political oasis in this era of political and cultural division, uncertainty, and political strife in the US. Greenberg portrait is a vital reminder that now more than ever we need principled leaders, who had the vision, courage, and integrity of John Lewis.

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