#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND COSMOPOLITAN John Lewis, who at age twenty-five … AND COSMOPOLITAN
John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” From an early age, Lewis learned that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a minister, practiced by preaching to his family’s chickens. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it—his first act, he wryly recalled, of nonviolent protest. Integral to Lewis’s commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God—and an unshakable belief in the power of hope.
Meacham calls Lewis “as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first-century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the Republic itself in the eighteenth century.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one’s neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful. In many ways he brought a still-evolving nation closer to realizing its ideals, and his story offers inspiration and illumination for Americans today who are working for social and political change.
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John Meacham has written an essential work on a true American Hero -John Lewis . The author quotes him as follows So much of what makes America truly great is hanging in the balance -our openness to immigrants ,our treatment of the poor ,our protection of a free and fair right to vote ,our care of the climate ,our expansion of economic opportunity ,our attitude toward our political foes .Fear is abroad in the land ,and we must gather the forces of hope and march once more . The spirit of Dr.King lives with us.The civil rights movement brought about a nonviolent revolution -a revolution in values , a revolution in ideas.The soul force of this movement enabled America to find its moral compass When one reads of John Lewis One realizes his tremendous strength still lives on with 45 arrests , a cracked skull he never gave up on his dreams to have black people vote and be treated with the same respect all citizens are .Again we are confronted with social unrest and injustice .When John Lewis looks down on us from heaven I hope he finds the majority of us standing on the right side of justice which he dedicated his life to give us .Where do you stand ?
Throughout his lifelong fight for equal rights, the incomparable John Lewis was arrested 49 times, and he suffered countless beatings, including a fractured skull at the hands of police brutality. Regardless of the endless hatred and violence inflicted upon him, he marched forward with his mission to gain equality for his people, and he did so as a peacemaker armed only with practicing nonviolence. Lewis may have possessed a quiet demeanor, but his voice resonated when he delivered his undaunted message of hope that the struggle would never relent in confronting America’s injustices against Black people. He voiced this message and then he courageously led by his example, always putting himself in harm’s way and suffering the scars to prove that what he stood for reflected what he preached.
He lived by the creed of using righteous action to move America forward from sin to redemption. Lewis relied overwhelmingly on his faith in God to guide his purpose in life to suffer and to die, if need be, in the cause of freedom. Therefore, Meacham compares how Lewis’s life came to embody the ideals of a saint as he worked tirelessly and peacefully against the evil forces of hatred, racism, and discrimination. In elevating Lewis to a sanctified status, Meacham says, “John Lewis is a better angel.” Such deification is appropriate because Lewis’s life reveals a man who refused to accept the world’s inhumanity by taking up the nonviolent fight against the sin of inequality and injustice.
Lewis believed God was on the side of the Civil Rights Movement, so he used his faith as a force of liberation and progress against sin. Whereas some Americans may say they believe in a cause but not in its principles, Lewis both embraced his faith and then utilized it as the only weapon he needed to pursue justice. In this way, he followed the path of Jesus. When he was wronged, he did not retaliate or seek revenge. Instead he chose to forgive and to return hate with the love and compassion of nonviolence that he learned from the teachings of Jesus, James Lawson, Martin Luther King, and Gandhi.
His quest to end injustice and to attain redemption for America relied on the work and actions he undertook in God’s name. He knew such action would require suffering, but he was a willing solider of God because he believed in the establishment of the “Beloved Community.” This ideal for a nation did not depend upon a perfect union with a perfect government, but rather an ideal of a Kingdom on Earth where humans strive in their efforts to come together to fulfill Jesus’s vision of equality and opportunity for everyone. This was Lewis’s hope, and he believed hope could fulfill what he called the “Spirit of History.”
Throughout Meacham’s biography, he quotes widely from Lewis himself and from others close to him. It is fitting that Lewis offered his own “Afterword” to Meacham’s book, so I find it compelling to offer two passages below from the great John Lewis:
He says, “When you see something you believe is unfair or unjust, you have to say so. Silence is not the answer. So much of what makes America truly great is hanging in the balance—our openness to immigrants, our treatment of the poor, our protection of a free and fair right to vote, our care of the climate, our expansion of economic opportunity, our attitude toward our political foes. Fear is abroad in the land, and we must gather the forces of hope and march once more.”
He says, “The teaching of individuals like James Lawson, Gandhi, and Dr. King lift us. They move us, and they tell us over and over again if another person can do just that, if another generation can get in the way or get in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble, I, too, can do something. I, too, can get in trouble for the greater good.”
I am too young to remember John Lewis’ role in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s, so this book revealed his significant contributions. Very insightful in relation to the current critical race theory.
Read 8.23.2020
RTC – I need to deal with my book hangover first. And find some more Kleenex to mop up these tears….
I am not sure I can get through this review without crying again; I am not sure that people fully realize what we, as a nation, and BIPOC people especially, lost when John Lewis died. He was a nonviolent fighter up until the end and the loss of him is just so huge. And as I was reading this book, it was made so apparent to me over and over and over again what a huge voice for the Civil Rights Moments and Black Lives Matter he was and what his death means to those groups and to the people [BIPOC] involved.
As Mr. Meacham states, this is not a definitive biography of John Lewis’ life. I think that would take a book much larger than this. Because, even though he was a quiet and nonviolent man, his voice and life was large. But this IS an excellent biography of John Lewis’ time and life in the Civil Rights Movement, and all he faced and dealt with and persevered from. Some of these stories will make you sick. Some will bring you joy. Some will make you sadder than you ever thought you could be. And they are ALL stories that you will never forget and will quite possibly will change your life forever. I know I will never be the same.
This was so well done and in my opinion, should be required reading. I will be shoving this at everyone I know so they too can read about this lovely quiet man who helped change America.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group/Random House for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Good trouble abounds
This is what I’m reading now. John Lewis was a giant and Jon Meacham an impeccable writer!
John Lewis was a giant among men. His life story is an inspiration for all those who follow the path he helped to carve in the fight for civil rights and justice for all. John Lewis gave interviews to the author, Jon Meacham, and it gives you a unique perspective into his life and beliefs. Meacham at times speaks of Lewis as though he were more saint than human, something that might make the reader scoff at initially. But it soon becomes clear that Meacham isn’t gilding the lily in his portrayal of Lewis. The man truly was a truly good person and deserving of such high praise. Representative Lewis fought the good fight, and he was gracious enough to share his experiences, his wisdom and his humility with us all. He taught us what it meant to get in good trouble. I am simply grateful that he was appreciated while he was with us, that he knew how he inspired others to fight for civil rights and a better world. We were so fortunate to have him, and his legacy of peace and love will live on. Jon Meacham shows us just what a great man he was. It is a fitting epitaph to Rep. Lewis’s life’s story.
The day of John Lewis’ death I began reading the egalley for His Truth is Marching On: John Lewis and The Power of Hope by Jon Meacham.
It was a hard book to read, and heartbreaking, for Lewis was willing to lay down his life to achieve a just society, and he faced the most vicious violence.
Lewis has left behind a country still divided and angry, the dream of a Beloved Community unfulfilled. The struggle for the promise of America continues.
Meacham writes, “John Robert Lewis embodied the traits of a saint in the classical Christian sense of the term,” a man who answered the call to do the Lord’s work in the world. A man who faced tribulation and persecution for seeking the justice we are called to enact as our faith responsibility. A man who sought redemption for his country. A man whose faith never flagged, not in the face of hate and blows, not when the movement shifted away from non-violence. He was faithful to his Gospel call of peace and the establishment of The Beloved Community.
“The tragedy of man,” the twentieth-century Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr observed, “is that he can conceive self-perfection but cannot achieve it,” Meacham quotes, adding, “And the tragedy of America is that we can imagine justice but cannot finally realize it.”
I was only twenty when I married a seminary student. Professors and the school Dean had worked to integrate churches in the South. I audited classes taught by these men. One wrote a seminal work on White Privilege, Segregation and the Bible. Another taught Niebuhr Moral Man in Immoral Society. It was an atmosphere that believed in faith in action, changing society to bring the Gospel to fulfillment.
The world has changed, including the church. Personal salvation and sanctity replaced social justice. Church as entertainment and community evolved. Separation from general society was the norm, with Christian music and businesses arising. We hardly recognize contemporary Christianity, especially it’s alignment with Trump’s divisive and racist actions.
We are at a decisive moment in history. What future will American choose?
Meacham is an inspirational and eloquent writer. His portrait of Lewis begins in his childhood through the Civil Rights movement and the Voting Rights act, ending with the rise of Black Power.
Meacham calls for us to be inspired by the life of John Lewis as we decide on our future in America. Will we remain divided and filled with hate? Or will we embrace love and faith in the value of every being? “God’s truth is marching on,” he reminds us, “We can do it…I believe we can do it.”
Meacham ends his book with hope that America will yet achieve a just society.
I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.