His truth is marching on : John Lewis and the power of hope /
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Random House, 2020Description: 354 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781984855022
- 1984855026
- 9780593400173
- 328.73/092 B 23
- E840.8.L43 M43 2020
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Large Print | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | Large.Print B LEWIS MEACHAM (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022722941 | |||
Standard Loan | Coeur d'Alene Library Adult Biography | Coeur d'Alene Library | Book | B LEWIS MEACHAM (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 2 | Available | 50610023540623 | |||
Standard Loan | Hayden Library Adult Biography | Hayden Library | Book | LEWIS-MEACHAM (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610022520436 | |||
Standard Loan | Liberty Lake Library Adult Biography | Liberty Lake Library | Book | BIO LEWIS MEA (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | Available | 31421000658469 | ||||
Standard Loan | Rathdrum Library Adult Biography | Rathdrum Library | Book | LEWIS-MEACHAM (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 50610024157880 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
#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
"An extraordinary man who deserves our everlasting admiration and gratitude."- The Washington Post
ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST AND COSMOPOLITAN 'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
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.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Overture: the last march -- A hard life, a serious life -- The spirit of history -- Soul force -- In the image of God and democracy -- We are going to make you wish you was dead -- I'm going to die here -- This country don't run on love -- Epilogue: against the rulers of the darkness.
"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"--
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- Overture The Last March (p. 3)
- Chapter 1 A Hard Life, A Serious Life
- Troy, Alabama: Beginnings to 1957 (p. 17)
- Chapter 2 The Spirit of History
- Nashville, Tennessee: 1957-60 (p. 45)
- Chapter 3 Soul Force
- The Freedom Rides: 1961 (p. 83)
- Chapter 4 In the Image of God and Democracy
- Birmingham and Washington: 1963 (p. 117)
- Chapter 5 We are Going to Make You Wish You was Dead
- Freedom Summer and Atlantic City: 1963-64 (p. 147)
- Chapter 6 I'm Going to Die Here
- Selma, Alabama: 1965 (p. 183)
- Chapter 7 This Country Don't Run on Love
- New York, Memphis, Los Angeles: 1966-68 (p. 210)
- Epilogue Against the Rulers of the Darkness (p. 233)
- Afterword (p. 247)
- Author's Note and Acknowledgments (p. 251)
- Appendix (p. 255)
- Source Notes (p. 267)
- Bibliography (p. 321)
- Illustration List and Credits (p. 339)
- Index (p. 345)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Publishers Weekly Review
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. (Oct.)Kirkus Book Review
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. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.Author notes provided by Syndetics
Jon Meacham was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on May 20, 1969. He received a degree in English literature at the University of the South. He joined Newsweek as a writer in 1995. Three years later, at the age of 29, he was promoted to managing editor, supervising coverage of politics, international affairs, and breaking news. In 2006, he was promoted to editor at Newsweek. He is currently an executive editor at Random House.He won the Pulitzer Prize for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House in 2009. His other works include Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation. In 2001, he edited Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement. In 2013 his title Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power made The New York Times Best Seller List. In 2015 Meacham's title Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush made The New York Times Best Seller List. His most recent book is entitled The Soul of America: The Battle for our Better Angels (2018).
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