His Truth Is Marching On

September 7, 2020
A profile in courage and faith under fire emerges from this vivid portrait of Georgia congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis (1940–2020). Meacham (The Hope of Glory) focuses on Lewis’s experiences during the late 1950s and ’60s as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and a leader in crucial civil rights actions. It’s an epic story in Meacham’s impassioned telling: arrested and beaten many times, Lewis was knocked unconscious by a white mob in Montgomery, Ala., during the Freedom Rides, and had his skull fractured during the 1965 Bloody Sunday march in Selma, where, “trapped between asphalt and his uniformed attackers, inhaling tear gas and reeling from the billy club blow to his head, felt everything dimming.” Meacham also probes the nonviolent protest philosophy Lewis learned from Martin Luther King Jr. and others, exploring its Christian intellectual roots, its practical discipline—training sessions featured mock racist attacks—and Lewis’s lonely adherence to nonviolence and integrationism after the SNCC gravitated to Black Power militance. Meacham sometimes goes overboard in his adulation, declaring Lewis a “saint” who “seemed to walk with Jesus Himself” and was “in the world, but not really of it.” Still, this gripping work is deeply relevant to America’s current turmoil over racial injustice.

August 28, 2020

In this focused biography, Meacham (The Hope of Glory) illuminates the life of U.S. Representative John Lewis (1940-2020) and his noble actions and strong principles that helped to influence the civil rights movement. Drawing on the author's own interviews with Lewis, along with secondary resources, this account mostly focuses on Lewis's life from childhood through 1968, with brief mention of events occurring shortly before his death this past July. Meacham presents the notion that Lewis embodies the traits of a saint, "a man of faith and action," and he deftly draws correlations between the activist's strong faith-based principles and his tireless dedication to the nonviolent fight for equality. Because of Lewis's participation in so many aspects of the civil rights movement, the work also reads as a historical primer of the era touching on many of the pivotal figures and moments of the time, including lunch counter sit-ins, the Freedom Riders, the March on Washington, and Bloody Sunday in Selma, AL. The afterword, written by Lewis himself, speaks to the possibility of unity and is powerful and indicative of his character. VERDICT A well-crafted testament to a tumultuous time in American history and to one of the brave men who helped shape the world we know today. Essential for all collections.--Anitra Gates, Erie Cty. P.L., PA

Copyright 2020 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2020
The story of the late congressman and activist's massive contributions to the civil rights movement. Pulitzer Prize winner Meacham, a Time contributing editor and professor at Vanderbilt, has written about many significant figures in American history. In this timely biography, the author narrates the incredible life of John Lewis (1940-2020), one of the civil rights movement's most prominent leaders. Meacham concisely chronicles his subject's highs and lows and, most importantly, his personal sacrifices--not least of them being severely beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma in 1965 while leading a protest march. Given his remarkable accomplishments, Lewis is that rare historical figure who deserves his lionization. Refreshingly, Meacham offers a distinctly human portrait of a man who struggled with anxieties, fears, and occasionally despair, a leader who dug deep to find the courage to keep going in the face of nearly insurmountable cultural resistance. From his humble beginnings to his recent death, the author clearly demonstrates Lewis' bravery and survivor's instinct, whether he was penetrating segregated stores in Nashville in 1960, organizing the Freedom Riders a year later, or becoming the go-to young organizer who had the ear of everyone from John F. Kennedy to Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout the book, Meacham not only shows Lewis' obvious talent as an organizer and an instigator of what he called "good trouble"; what also emerges is the story of a preacher, the calling that a young Lewis yearned for and never really gave up. As always, the author is a fluid writer, and the book benefits from his inclusion of commentary from such contemporaries as Harry Belafonte. An added bonus is a heartfelt epilogue by Lewis himself. "The civil rights movement," he writes, "brought about a nonviolent revolution--a revolution in values, a rev-olution in ideas. The soul force of this movement enabled America to find its moral compass." An elegant, moving portrait of a giant of post-1950 American history.

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