Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement [Paperback]

John Lewis (Author), Michael D'Orso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 18, 1999 | Series: Harvest Book

Congressman John Lewis takes readers inside the civil rights movement in Walking with the Wind and shares rare insight into the personalities at its heart.

 

As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congressman John Lewis was at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late '50s and '60s. Arrested more than forty times, he was one of its youngest and most courageous leaders. Writing with charm, warmth, and honesty, Lewis moves from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins as he reflects on the era to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday." Though there have been exceptional books on the movement, Lewis's profound personal story is "destined to become a classic in civil rights literature" (Los Angeles Times).

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

John Lewis is an authentic American hero, a modest man from the most humble of beginnings who left a rural Alabama cotton farm 40 years ago and strode into the forefront of the civil rights movement. One of the young people who brought the teachings of Ghandi and King to the lunch counters of Nashville in 1960, Lewis suffered taunts and threats, beatings and arrests. He spoke at the historic 1963 March on Washington and became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The nation, tuned to the nightly news, watched in horror as state troopers clubbed him viciously, fracturing his skull as he led a march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Today, he's the only member of Congress who can be proud of having been carried off to jail more than 40 times. With the help of a collaborator, journalist Michael D'Orso, this remarkable man has written a truly remarkable book. Walking with the Wind is a deeply moving personal memoir that skillfully balances the intimate and touching recollections of the deeply thoughtful Lewis with the intense national drama that was the civil rights movement. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Lewis, an Alabama sharecropper's son, went to Nashville to attend a Baptist college where, at the end of the 1950s, his life and the new civil rights movement became inexorably entwined. First came the lunch counter sit-ins; then the Freedom Rides; the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and Lewis's election to its chairmanship; the voter registration drives; the 1963 march on Washington; the Birmingham church bombings; the murders during the Freedom Summer; the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party; Bloody Sunday in Selma in 1964; and the march on Montgomery. Lewis was an active, leading member during all of it. Much of his account, written with freelancer D'Orso, covers the same territory as David Halberstam's The Children?Halberstam himself appears here briefly as a young reporter?but Lewis imbues it with his own observations as a participant. He is at times so self-effacing in this memoir that he underplays his role in the events he helped create. But he has a sharp eye, and his account of Selma and the march that followed is vivid and personal?he describes the rivalries within the movement as well as the enemies outside. After being forced out of SNCC because of internal politics, Lewis served in President Carter's domestic peace corps, dabbled in local Georgia politics, then in 1986 defeated his old friend Julian Bond in a race for Congress, where he still serves. Lewis notes that people often take his quietness for meekness. His book, a uniquely well-told testimony by an eyewitness, makes clear that such an impression is entirely inaccurate.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; First Edition edition (October 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156007088
• ISBN-13: 978-0156007085
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 1.3 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (61 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #250,023 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The best memoir I've ever read January 24, 2000

By Tyler Green

Format:Hardcover

I don't like memoirs. They're usually self-serving, ego-driven and full of cheap shots. Walking With the Wind is none of those. John Lewis and his co-author have crafted a marvelously told tale of the civil rights movement. Perhaps no one but Lewis, King and Abernathy could write about the movement with this scope. Lewis was there for all of it, from jails, to voting, to sit-ins. And he describes it beautifully with the perfect pace.

I think the book's best chapters are the ones that cover what happened in Selma. I've read a half-dozen histories of the civil rights movement and none of them have recounted the Selma story better than Lewis does here.

Lewis also gives us insight into several other movement leaders. Not even Taylor Branch (the Pulitzer-winning historian and journalist) tells us about Jim Bevel with this much color. Lewis tells fascinating stories about Diane Nash, Stokely Carmichael and the relations between SNCC and the other movement-leading groups. It's the kind of inside baseball a good memoir delivers.

I'm thrilled that I read this book. It has greatly contributed to my understanding of the civil rights movement.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A great American triumph August 3, 2000

By Eric V. Moye

Format:Hardcover

Uplifting. Eloquent. Brilliant. Inspiring. Patriotic.

John Lewis' life story is the story of a genuine American hero. The depth and strength of his moral conviction shows what character can accomplish. This book, just as this man's life, cannot be overrated or over-appreciated.

John Lewis, as a young man had the calling. His deeply religious upbringing ultimately led him to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and work with Rev. Martin Luther King. He sat in where Black people were not wanted. He demanded for Black people the rights to which all Americans have an expectation. He walked the walk at a time when it was not only unpopular, but downright death defying.

He moved from the pulpit to the halls of Congress, where he serves to this day.

As inspiring a work as I have ever read. Ought to be required reading by everyone in the Nation for a deeper understanding of the power of the American spirit.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The story of a true American hero June 21, 2002

By Richard E. Hourula

Format:Paperback

John Lewis was seemingly everywhere during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. From the Nashville Sit-Ins, to the Freedom Rides to the famous march from Selma and more. It is akin to someone having been at the Boston Tea Party, Lexington and Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. Not only was Lewis there but he was an active participant, one of the many brave souls who risked injury, even death to bring down segregation. Lewis knew all the key figures in the Movement, such as Dr. King, and was a leader himself. Today, of course, Lewis serves his country in the House of Representatives.
It's hard to go wrong with such a compelling story to tell and Lewis doesn't dissapoint. With the help of co-author Michael D'Orso, we learn not only of one person's participation in the Civil Rights' Movement, but gain insight into the Movement as a whole.
Lewis is vastly under appreciated by Americans today. Hopefully Waking With the Wind will help future generations appreciate John Lewis, an American hero.