Walking with the Wind (Lewis)

Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement
John Lewis and Michael D'Orso, 2015 (reissue, 2020)
Simon & Schuster
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476797717


Summary
 An award-winning national bestseller, Walking with the Wind is one of our most important records of the American Civil Rights Movement. Told by John Lewis, who Cornel West calls a “national treasure,” this is a gripping first-hand account of the fight for civil rights and the courage it takes to change a nation.

In 1957, a teenaged boy named John Lewis left a cotton farm in Alabama for Nashville, the epicenter of the struggle for civil rights in America.

Lewis’s adherence to nonviolence guided that critical time and established him as one of the movement’s most charismatic and courageous leaders.

Lewis’s leadership in the Nashville Movement—a student-led effort to desegregate the city of Nashville using sit-in techniques based on the teachings of Gandhi—set the tone for major civil rights campaigns of the 1960s.

Lewis traces his role in the pivotal Selma marches, Bloody Sunday, and the Freedom Rides. Inspired by his mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Lewis’s vision and perseverance altered history. In 1986, he ran and won a congressional seat in Georgia, and remains in office to this day, continuing to enact change.
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The late Edward M. Kennedy said of Lewis, "John tells it like it was.… Lewis spent most of his life walking against the wind of the times, but he was surely walking with the wind of history." (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 21, 1940
• Born—Troy, Alabama, USA
• Death—July 17, 2020
• Education—American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville
• Awards—National Book Award (more below)


Congressman John Lewis was a leader in the American Civil Rights Movement. He was chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and played a key role in the struggle to end segregation. Despite more than 40 arrests, physical attacks, and serious injuries, Lewis remained a devoted advocate of the philosophy of nonviolence.

He is co-author of the first comics work to ever win the National Book Award, the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel memoir trilogy MARCH, written with Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell. He is also the recipient of numerous awards from national and international institutions including the Lincoln Medal, the John F. Kennedy "Profile in Courage" Lifetime Achievement Award, and the NAACP Spingarn Medal, among many others. (From the publisher.)

His 1998 memoir, Walking with the Wind, was reissued in 2015. Two years later, in 2017, after a very public spat with President Donald Trump, Amazon announced that copies of his memoir had reached #3 on its bestseller list—and were sold out. Used copies were going for nearly $100.

Book Reviews
In  Walking With the Wind,  John Lewis evokes, with simplicity and passion, how the 1960's transformed the United States. In the first half of that decade, the civil rights movement toppled the legal structure of racial segregation, held forth the hope of building a society based on reconciliation and justice and helped create the foundation for other social movements. Yet by the end of the 60's, assassinations, disillusionment with the political system and a tragic war 9,000 miles away had eroded optimism and a sense of possibility. In this powerful memoir (written with Michael D'Orso…), Lewis provides a compelling account of that topsy-turvy journey—an account rooted in his own history.
William H. Chafe - New York Times


Rep. John Lewis was among those who spilled blood on Bloody Sunday. He was among the civil-rights leaders who marched near Selma 50 years ago tomorrow… was struck down by the baton of official oppression…. [Lewis], a deep believer in nonviolent protest, lost consciousness and thought he was going to die that day. Instead, a half-century later, he stands tall as a symbol of change….  Congressman Lewis’ account in Walking With The Wind is vivid, and almost more important, reveal[s] the lens through which he processed the sights and sounds of the bridge.
Michael Cavna - Washington Post


For those too young to remember and those too old to forget, for everyone of race, we owe a debt of gratitude to this American hero, and the nameless, frightened (but ultimately fearless) multitudes that walked with him down those rugged roads of history.
Pittsburgh Post Gazette


Lewis imbues [this memoir] with his own observations as a participant. He…has a sharp eye, and his account of Selma and the march that followed is vivid and personal…. His book, a uniquely well-told testimony by an eyewitness, makes clear that such an impression is entirely inaccurate.
Publishers Weekly


[A] passionate, principled, and absorbing first-person account of the civil-rights movement—dramatic, well-paced history…. [Lewis] memorializes not only the drama [of the Selma March], but the patience and steely courage of "the days and days of uneventful protest" that laid the groundwork…. A classic, invaluable blockbuster history of the civil-rights movement.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion of WALKING WITH THE WIND … then take off on your own:

1. In reading his memoir, how would you piece together, what John Lewis was like as a person? How did the events of his childhood affect his strength and passion to fight for civil rights in the 1960s—especially, as written in his memoir, growing up on the family farm in "a small world, a safe world, filled with family and friends"? In what way did that safe environment propel him to become a leader in the Civil Rights movement? Consider, for instance, his reference to caring for the family's chickens and what ideals that instilled in him.

2. What it was like to live in the Jim Crow South society of the 1940 ad 50s, as recalled to us by Lewis?

3. What role did Lewis's faith play in his life, starting from the time he was a child? How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon on the radio, entitled "Paul's Letter to the American Christians" affect Lewis?

4. What role did Lewis play in galvanizing the nation once Americans learned of the brutality meted out to demonstrators in Montgomery, Alabama?

5. In August, 1963, Lewis gave a speech as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at the March on Washington. What did he call for? Did the speech work? Would it have worked today? How did the Black Power movement undermine Lewis's goals?

6. Discuss what happened at the 1964 Democratic National Convention? Talk about how Lyndon Johnson's decision, or compromise, affected John Lewis and the momentum of the civil rights movement.

7. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, what affect did it have on the movement, and on Lewis himself?

8. How is Lewis's memoir relevant today?

9. How much did you know, or understand, about the history of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement before reading Walking with the Wind? Did John Lewis's memoir expand your knowledge or confirm your ideas of that era in history?

10. Why, in your opinion, has the Civil Rights movement persisted? Or has it persisted? What happened to the momentum of the 60s? Did it stall out? Did it continue? Why, after 50 years, are Black citizens still struggling for equality?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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