Call number
328.73 MEA
Collection
Publication
Random House (2020), Edition: Illustrated, 368 pages
Description
"John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, is a visionary and a man of faith. Using intimate interviews with Lewis and his family and deep research into the history of the civil rights movement, Meacham writes of how the activist and leader was inspired by the Bible, his mother's unbreakable spirit, his sharecropper father's tireless ambition, and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr. A believer in hope above all else, Lewis learned from a young age 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 preacher, practiced by preaching to the chickens he took care of. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it--his first act of non-violent 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 nation-state in the eighteenth century. He did what he did--risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful--not in spite of America, but because of America, and not in spite of religion, but because of religion"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member nancyadair
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
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. (see NYT article here.) 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.
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
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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. (see NYT article here.) 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.
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LibraryThing member scottjpearson
The recently deceased congressman John Lewis has been a public light to the United States for over fifty years. Nicknamed “the conscience of Congress,” he courageously campaigned for civil rights since a college student in Nashville. The author Jon Meacham, surely one of America’s greatest
I can compare reading the early chapters of this book to only one life experience – a tour of the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. I was emotionally overwhelmed and captivated by the national struggle to love all races. Meacham’s research and writing so excels that he makes us see the world through Lewis’ eyes. And of course, Lewis’ vision of the world, captured in Dr. King’s phrase “the beloved community,” was and is one that ought to be held onto.
Lewis and others had to endure much to receive their just place in American culture. Regardless of one’s politics, ethnicity, or nationality, this story needs to be retold again and again. Lewis’ particular tale is one of courage, suffering, and eventual triumph. He famously even had his skull cracked by police in Selma, Alabama, as a testimony that black lives count for something. A photograph of him seeing recent Black Lives Matter protests precedes an afterword in the book by Lewis himself.
The main weakness of this book lies in its brevity. It only recounts about a decade of drama in Lewis’ life. I am left wanting to know this great human more. I am left wanting to learn about how he implemented his vision in one of the most difficult of all places – the United States Congress. I am left wanting to hear about his gentility as he transformed from a civil-rights soldier to dignified leader, much in the way that Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower have. Lewis’ greatness is not restricted to reactions to his skin color in the 1960s American South; it spans to his universal vision for the world. Meacham leaves us with an epilogue that describes such – again, I want more.
In an age of partisanship and vacuous national leadership, I hope that many read this work. It’s not inspiring. It’s tragic and sad, even disheartening. How can fellow human beings treat each other so poorly? This work corrects such prejudices and expresses deep determination to fight for what’s right and good and, dare I say, holy in this world. In the process of reading, it made me examine my own conscience and place in this world. Like all good expressions of the human spirit, it leaves me just wanting more.
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biographers, writes this history of Lewis’ doings in the 1960s. With extreme acuity, gravity, and imagery, he captures what the civil rights movement resembled on the inside. In so doing, he memorializes Lewis in a way that proudly continues Lewis’ unique legacy.I can compare reading the early chapters of this book to only one life experience – a tour of the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee. I was emotionally overwhelmed and captivated by the national struggle to love all races. Meacham’s research and writing so excels that he makes us see the world through Lewis’ eyes. And of course, Lewis’ vision of the world, captured in Dr. King’s phrase “the beloved community,” was and is one that ought to be held onto.
Lewis and others had to endure much to receive their just place in American culture. Regardless of one’s politics, ethnicity, or nationality, this story needs to be retold again and again. Lewis’ particular tale is one of courage, suffering, and eventual triumph. He famously even had his skull cracked by police in Selma, Alabama, as a testimony that black lives count for something. A photograph of him seeing recent Black Lives Matter protests precedes an afterword in the book by Lewis himself.
The main weakness of this book lies in its brevity. It only recounts about a decade of drama in Lewis’ life. I am left wanting to know this great human more. I am left wanting to learn about how he implemented his vision in one of the most difficult of all places – the United States Congress. I am left wanting to hear about his gentility as he transformed from a civil-rights soldier to dignified leader, much in the way that Washington, Grant, and Eisenhower have. Lewis’ greatness is not restricted to reactions to his skin color in the 1960s American South; it spans to his universal vision for the world. Meacham leaves us with an epilogue that describes such – again, I want more.
In an age of partisanship and vacuous national leadership, I hope that many read this work. It’s not inspiring. It’s tragic and sad, even disheartening. How can fellow human beings treat each other so poorly? This work corrects such prejudices and expresses deep determination to fight for what’s right and good and, dare I say, holy in this world. In the process of reading, it made me examine my own conscience and place in this world. Like all good expressions of the human spirit, it leaves me just wanting more.
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LibraryThing member Beamis12
It is hard to accept that in such A relatively short space of time , two wonderful people like John Lewis and RBG have been taken from us. Two who represented the best of society and politics. The best of us.
John Lewis was a man of deep faith, a man who wanted to improve the lives of his people,
In the back of the book we read Lewis in his own words. Impressive and unforgettable, as was the man himself.
John Lewis was a man of deep faith, a man who wanted to improve the lives of his people,
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and did it peacefully, legally. He was beaten, thrown in prison, yet his resolve never wavered. Meacham due a fine job showing us what compelled him on to this path and what he hoped to accomplish. He was a man of integrity, a man with a deep, commanding voice that demanded to be heard. This is the man one reads about in this book. The kind of man we need more of in this country, where dishonesty is now so often portrayed as truth.In the back of the book we read Lewis in his own words. Impressive and unforgettable, as was the man himself.
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LibraryThing member MrDickie
Outstanding book by Jon Meacham about Civil Rights leader John Lewis. I learned a lot about the Civil Rights movement listening to this ten hour audiobook.
LibraryThing member breic
This is a fine biography, but it doesn't add much to Lewis's own memoir. "Walking from the Wind," from which Meacham quotes liberally, is a powerful story, and I would recommend that everyone read that instead.
> "Oh, God, yes, I dream about those days," Lewis said shortly before he succumbed to
> in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois had captured something of what Lewis was experiencing. "One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," Du Bois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk.
> The fury of the segregationist South was now focused not only on black communities and their allies in the streets and in the stores but on the Kennedys, who had failed, in the prevailing white view, to shut down the civil rights movement altogether. "I hope that every drop of blood that's spilled he tastes in his throat," the mayor of Birmingham said of Robert Kennedy, "and I hope he chokes on it."
> Yet he lost, and he hated it. "John Patterson out-nigguhed me," Wallace was reputed to have remarked to a group of pols at Montgomery's Jefferson Davis Hotel after he lost. "And boys, I'm not goin' to be out-nigguhed again." ( Wallace denied this oft-repeated anecdote ever afterward.) "He used to be anything but a racist," an old political associate recalled, "but with all his chattering, he managed to talk himself into it."
> "The black man in America," Malcolm said, "is the only one who is encouraged to be nonviolent… Never do you find white people encouraging other whites to be nonviolent. Whites idolize fighters… Everyone loves a fighter. They respect a fighter. But at the same time that they admire these fighters, they encourage the so-called Negro in America to get his desires fulfilled with a sit-in stroke or a passive approach or a love-your-enemy approach or pray for those who despitefully use you. This is insane." … Why, Malcolm continued, should a black man "wait for the Supreme Court to give him what a white man has when he's born? Why should he wait for the Congress or the Senate or the president to tell him that he should have this, when if he's a man the same as that man is a man, he doesn't need any president, he doesn't need any Congress, he doesn't need any Supreme Court, he doesn't need anybody but himself to bring about that which is his, if he is a man?" Baldwin took a different view. "Malcolm X wants us to act like men," Baldwin said. Yet for Baldwin, masculinity and heroism were not synonymous with the capacity for violence.
> Goldwater declared, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice…[and] moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." San Francisco signaled a rightward move in the Republican Party away from the temperate conservatism of Eisenhower. The tone of the GOP convention was such that Jackie Robinson, until that point a loyal Republican, remarked that being black at the Cow Palace that week gave him "a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany." Nothing about the politics of 1964,
> Obama got it: The lesson of Lewis was that sustained personal witness to injustice, borne in the public arena where opinions are shaped, laws enacted, and reality changed, is vital.
> "Oh, God, yes, I dream about those days," Lewis said shortly before he succumbed to
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cancer and died at home in Atlanta on Friday, July 17, 2020. "I dream of marching, of singing. I hear the music of the movement in my dreams, and the sounds of our feet on the pavement, one after another. I don't have nightmares—I don't relive the beatings in my dreams, at least not that I ever remember. I'm not sure why. Maybe in my mind the good forces are always at work. There is a power of the mind to believe and think on the higher drama of it, the higher things of it, the light, not the dark. We truly believed that we were on God's side, and in spite of everything—the beatings, the bombings, the burnings—God's truth would prevail. Sometimes I'll dream of a march, of moving forward, of light and warmth and happiness. And then I'll wake up and think, 'Oh, that was just a dream.' But you have to believe that it can be real, that it can be more than a dream."> in 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois had captured something of what Lewis was experiencing. "One ever feels his two-ness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder," Du Bois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk.
> The fury of the segregationist South was now focused not only on black communities and their allies in the streets and in the stores but on the Kennedys, who had failed, in the prevailing white view, to shut down the civil rights movement altogether. "I hope that every drop of blood that's spilled he tastes in his throat," the mayor of Birmingham said of Robert Kennedy, "and I hope he chokes on it."
> Yet he lost, and he hated it. "John Patterson out-nigguhed me," Wallace was reputed to have remarked to a group of pols at Montgomery's Jefferson Davis Hotel after he lost. "And boys, I'm not goin' to be out-nigguhed again." ( Wallace denied this oft-repeated anecdote ever afterward.) "He used to be anything but a racist," an old political associate recalled, "but with all his chattering, he managed to talk himself into it."
> "The black man in America," Malcolm said, "is the only one who is encouraged to be nonviolent… Never do you find white people encouraging other whites to be nonviolent. Whites idolize fighters… Everyone loves a fighter. They respect a fighter. But at the same time that they admire these fighters, they encourage the so-called Negro in America to get his desires fulfilled with a sit-in stroke or a passive approach or a love-your-enemy approach or pray for those who despitefully use you. This is insane." … Why, Malcolm continued, should a black man "wait for the Supreme Court to give him what a white man has when he's born? Why should he wait for the Congress or the Senate or the president to tell him that he should have this, when if he's a man the same as that man is a man, he doesn't need any president, he doesn't need any Congress, he doesn't need any Supreme Court, he doesn't need anybody but himself to bring about that which is his, if he is a man?" Baldwin took a different view. "Malcolm X wants us to act like men," Baldwin said. Yet for Baldwin, masculinity and heroism were not synonymous with the capacity for violence.
> Goldwater declared, "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice…[and] moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." San Francisco signaled a rightward move in the Republican Party away from the temperate conservatism of Eisenhower. The tone of the GOP convention was such that Jackie Robinson, until that point a loyal Republican, remarked that being black at the Cow Palace that week gave him "a better understanding of how it must have felt to be a Jew in Hitler's Germany." Nothing about the politics of 1964,
> Obama got it: The lesson of Lewis was that sustained personal witness to injustice, borne in the public arena where opinions are shaped, laws enacted, and reality changed, is vital.
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LibraryThing member Nancyjcbs
I knew John Lewis was a hero for civil rights. I knew he marched at Selma. I knew President Obama credited men like him for paving the way.
What I didn’t know was how instrumental a figure John Lewis was in the fight for civil rights. I didn’t appreciate the difficulty of that fight. I didn’t
Soon - I hope - Congress will be asked to pass a John Lewis Voting Rights Act. John Meacham’s book should be required reading for all of those elected to decide on passage.
What I didn’t know was how instrumental a figure John Lewis was in the fight for civil rights. I didn’t appreciate the difficulty of that fight. I didn’t
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fully comprehend John Lewis’s history, beliefs and motivations. We, Americans, were fortunate to have him in our history.Soon - I hope - Congress will be asked to pass a John Lewis Voting Rights Act. John Meacham’s book should be required reading for all of those elected to decide on passage.
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LibraryThing member jphamilton
There is no way to go wrong with John Lewis as the subject of a book that’s written by a writer as good as Jon Meacham. No disappointments here. John Lewis was a giant of a man and Meacham has done an excellent job of getting my attention quickly and keeping it through to the very last page.
Most of us have seen the footage of John Lewis being beaten and clubbed to the ground near that infamous bridge in Selma many times over. Far fewer people knew just how many times that same John Lewis was beaten, abused, and jailed over the many long years during which he was protesting with his body for people’s rights. When many other people involved in the civil rights struggle started to doubt nonviolence as the strongest way to proceed, John Lewis never wavered from that path. While only in his mid-twenties, he quickly became known by Martin Luther King Jr. and many of the others at the heart of the movement, as well as some in the media.
He came by many of his beliefs just from being a very religious man, and the great-grandson of a slave. I learned a great deal more about the non-violence training that so many protesters received before putting their bodies within the reach of fists and clubs, hoses and dogs, and the raw, seething hatred of those people who saw him as more savage than civilized. I had known about MLK’s involvement, but I hadn’t been aware of how essential James Lawson had been with a structured way of teaching so many about nonviolence.
This book is the result of several decades of personal interviews with Lewis, nearly up to the day of his death. As a young boy he always wanted to be a minister, and Meacham had great fun relating the story about how the young Lewis would preach to his chickens. All his life, Lewis maintained a strong belief in God, humanity, and the importance of hope in our lives. Believing in humanity and hope seems perfectly suited for a good, honest politician. It’s harder in these times to put good and honest together when dealing with the world of politics, but that’s why John Lewis was always a giant who lived by his towering faith.
Weeks after his 80th birthday in March 2020, much thinner because of the cancer that was ravaging his body, John Lewis said the following. ”If the young people of the South—young black people, young women, young men—could change the world then,” he’d say. “then we can do it again, now.” The faith and the hope that had brought him so far in his life, was still strong within the man, even in Selma on yet another anniversary of that fateful day near the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
I challenge anyone to read this book and not be moved and maybe inspired by John Lewis’s life and words. People of his character don’t come along often, and we’re so fortunate that Jon Meacham was able to bring him forward so clearly with his fine writing. My late wife and I, always held John Lewis as a hero, and after reading this book, I’m sure that even more people will feel the same way.
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After I had marked the most significant events, and the finest bits of Meacham’s writing with Post-Its, I was left with a book that closely resembled a colorful porcupine. I admire books like this that educate and bring history to life, where the reasons that drove events forward are evident, the people are fleshed out, and we are truly involved with the past, we’re far beyond just reading a collection of dates and names. Most of us have seen the footage of John Lewis being beaten and clubbed to the ground near that infamous bridge in Selma many times over. Far fewer people knew just how many times that same John Lewis was beaten, abused, and jailed over the many long years during which he was protesting with his body for people’s rights. When many other people involved in the civil rights struggle started to doubt nonviolence as the strongest way to proceed, John Lewis never wavered from that path. While only in his mid-twenties, he quickly became known by Martin Luther King Jr. and many of the others at the heart of the movement, as well as some in the media.
He came by many of his beliefs just from being a very religious man, and the great-grandson of a slave. I learned a great deal more about the non-violence training that so many protesters received before putting their bodies within the reach of fists and clubs, hoses and dogs, and the raw, seething hatred of those people who saw him as more savage than civilized. I had known about MLK’s involvement, but I hadn’t been aware of how essential James Lawson had been with a structured way of teaching so many about nonviolence.
This book is the result of several decades of personal interviews with Lewis, nearly up to the day of his death. As a young boy he always wanted to be a minister, and Meacham had great fun relating the story about how the young Lewis would preach to his chickens. All his life, Lewis maintained a strong belief in God, humanity, and the importance of hope in our lives. Believing in humanity and hope seems perfectly suited for a good, honest politician. It’s harder in these times to put good and honest together when dealing with the world of politics, but that’s why John Lewis was always a giant who lived by his towering faith.
Weeks after his 80th birthday in March 2020, much thinner because of the cancer that was ravaging his body, John Lewis said the following. ”If the young people of the South—young black people, young women, young men—could change the world then,” he’d say. “then we can do it again, now.” The faith and the hope that had brought him so far in his life, was still strong within the man, even in Selma on yet another anniversary of that fateful day near the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
I challenge anyone to read this book and not be moved and maybe inspired by John Lewis’s life and words. People of his character don’t come along often, and we’re so fortunate that Jon Meacham was able to bring him forward so clearly with his fine writing. My late wife and I, always held John Lewis as a hero, and after reading this book, I’m sure that even more people will feel the same way.
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LibraryThing member rynk
John Lewis' beatdown on the Edmund Pettis Bridge played on a loop on cable news after his death in 2020. The same film broke into network programming h0urs after it happened in 1965, and change came with the shock of recognizing what we could do to each other. Now it takes home confinement for us
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to sit with the casual cruelty caught weekly on citizen videos and police body cams, yet we seem less able to rouse ourselves. In recounting Lewis' student protests, Meacham shows the depths of his resilience (in one lunch counter sit-in, Lewis is locked in a Krystal hamburger stand and fumigated) and his simple faith in taking that one next step. Lewis is telling us, just march on. Show Less
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — History/Biography — 2021)
RUSA CODES Listen List (Listen-Alike — Listen-Alike to "King: A Life" — 2024)
Pages
368
ISBN
1984855026 / 9781984855022