Walking with the Wind

“Nothing can break you when you have the spirit. We proved that in Nashville and Birmingham and Montgomery and Selma. But my mother and father and so many like them proved it long before my generation was born. To understand the spirit that brought thousands of people just like me to those spotlighted stages of protests and marches, I am convinced it is necessary to understand the spirit that carried people like my mother—simple people, everyday people, good, honest, hardworking people—through lives that never made headlines but were the wellspring for the lives that did.” 

Lewis strongly believes that the spirit of their ancestors brought the men and women to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Despite the incredibly hard lives that many of their Black ancestors led as enslaved people, sharecroppers, and tenant farmers, their tremendous helped them overcome daily struggles. In turn, this faith was instilled in their children.

“The kindship I felt with these other living creatures, the closeness, the compassion, is a feeling I carried with me out into the world from that point on. It might have been a feeling I was born with, I don’t know, but the first time I recall being aware of it was with those chickens.” 

Several important childhood experiences shaped Lewis and guided him to the civil rights movement. While his parents and siblings thought the chickens were the lowest creatures on the farm, Lewis took his responsibility to care for them seriously. By feeding them, preaching to them, and hold funerals for them, he cared for both their bodies and souls. This experience epitomizes Lewis’s ability to feel deep compassion for all creatures; a trait that he would bring to the civil rights movement where he fought for the dignity and respect of all humans.

“When I care about something, when I commit to it, I am prepared to take the long, hard road, knowing it may not happen today or tomorrow, but ultimately, eventually, it will happen. That’s what faith is all about. That’s the definition of commitment—patience and persistence.”

One of Lewis’s defining character traits was tenaciousness: Once he made a decision, he would remain steadfast on that course. After he decided that he would go to school, he was resolute. He refused to work in the fields with his parents during the planting and harvesting seasons even when they scolded him for not helping. Lewis’s steadfast nature continued throughout his life. Later, he remained fully committed to the philosophy of nonviolence even in the face of crushing political and social disappointments, brutal beatings, jailtime, and the radicalization of segments of the civil rights movement.

“I didn’t hate the librarian at the Pike County Public Library who turned me away—very politely—when I walked up to her desk in the spring of that year and said I would like to apply for a library card so I could check out a book. I knew I would be refused. But that was the first step of the first formal protest of my life. I went home and wrote a petition stating that the library must be opened to Black people—public tax-paying Black people.” 

Inspired by Dr. King’s Montgomery Bus Boycott speech which emphasized action over violence to dismantle systemic injustices, Lewis took his first non-violent action after the Ku Klux Klan murdered his relative for involvement with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). In this passage, Lewis introduces a belief that he continues to refine throughout the book: he does not have ill-feelings or anger toward all White people. He hates the system that denies him and his fellow Black community members their rights.

“It was at this time that I began believing in what I call the Spirit of History. Others might call it Fate. Or Destiny. Or a Guiding Hand. Whatever it is called, I came to believe that this force is on the side of what is good, of what is right and just. It is the essence of the moral force of the universe, and at certain points in life, in the flow of human existence and circumstances, this force, this spirit, finds you or selects you, it chases you down, and you have no choice; you must allow yourself to be used, to be guided by this force and to carry out what must be done. To me, that concept of surrender, of giving yourself over to something inexorable, something so much larger than yourself, is the basis of what we call faith. And it is the first and most crucial step toward opening yourself up to the Spirit of History.” 

The “Spirit of History” is a key concept of Lewis’s memoir; one which he began to believe in during his first few months at ABT. To Lewis, the “spirit of history” is an invisible force or agent that guides an individual to stand up for an issue bigger than themselves, causing them to take their place within humanity’s story. The spirit of history moved through Lewis, guiding him to stand up against segregation and fight for equality for all people.

“I was an eager student for this stuff, just voracious, and I couldn’t have found a better teacher than Jim Lawson. I truly felt—and I still feel today—that he was God-sent. There was something of a mystic about him, something holy, so gathered, about his manner, the way he had of leaning back in his chair and listening—really listening—nodding his head, saying ‘Yes, go head,’ taking everything in before he responded. Very patient. Very attentive. Very calm. The man was a born teacher, in the truest sense of the word.” 

Lewis’s mentor Jim Lawson, was a pacifist and teacher of nonviolence who showed Lewis that nonviolence was a tactical way to fight back against segregation in the American South. Through a series of workshops, Lawson taught Lewis and other college students from Nashville, such as Diane Nash and Jim Bevel, who would become major activists in the CRM, about the theories and philosophies supporting nonviolence. Lawson also taught the students how to respond nonviolently to and protect themselves against violent attacks. He helped plan both the test sit-ins and actual sit-ins in Nashville along with the Nashville student leaders.

“This was the first such mass march in the history of America, the first civil rights assault on such a scale.” 

In the wake of the bombing of Looby’s home, who served as the attorney for the student activists, the Black residents of Nashville marched to the City Hall in protest. This mass march represented the first of its kind. Due to nonviolent actions, including this march, the sit-ins that took place over several months, and boycott of downtown stores by Black residents, the city finally agreed to start desegregating its public facilities. This example shows the power of nonviolence in the struggle to dismantle segregation in the South.

“I was about to become a Freedom Rider.” 

Lewis becoming a Freedom Rider marks a pivotal turning point in both the book and his life. Up to this point, his nonviolent protests focused on desegregating one city. However, with the Freedom Rides, he became much more heavily involved in desegregating the American South.

“To back down would effectively end the entire civil rights movement as we saw it. It would tell those in the South and anywhere else in the nation who respond with their fists and weapons to opposition that violence can put an end to peaceful protests. And it cannot.” 

Tensions rose between the student arm and older generation of the CRM. Due to the brutal attacks on the Freedom Riders, Farmer called off the rest of the ride. Members of the Nashville Christian Leadership Council (NCLC) initially agreed with Farmer’s decision. However, Lewis, Nash, Bevel, and other Nashville student leaders disagreed. They strongly believed that ending the Freedom Rides would end the CRM because it would demonstrate to anti-integrationists that violence could stop peaceful protests. The Nashville student leaders decided to continue the rides, eventually receiving grudging support from Farmer and NCLC members. This situation was one of many instances where the student and older civil rights activists disagreed on next steps.

“I understood that man’s fear. After all, a bus had been bombed just a few days before. But for some reason, what struck me the most at that moment was the fact that this white bus driver knew enough to mention CORE by name. The NAACP I could understand. Everyone had heard of the NAACP. But CORE?” 

Lewis and other SNCC members hoped that their nonviolent protests raised awareness on race relations in the American South. The incident described in this passage represents the first time that Lewis realized that this was indeed the case. Lewis notes that many Black people in the US did not know of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The fact that this White bus driver had heard of the organization illustrated that the Freedom Rides were highlighting civil rights issues for the American public.

“We were led into a cement building where deputies with cattle prods stood by while we were order to strip naked. For two and a half hours we stood wearing nothing, while we waited for…well we didn’t know what we were waiting for.” 

Lewis describes the inhumane treatment the Freedom Riders received in Parchman Farm. The prison authorities humiliated and dehumanized the students, who were forced to strip, wait two and a half hours, and go to a shower room guarded by a sergeant with a gun. This experience reminded Lewis of Nazi concentration camps. While Americans had been shocked by the treatment of Jewish people at the hands of Nazis, many in the South supported how Lewis and his fellow riders were being treated in the prison. The inhumane treatment did not stop. While the governor prohibited physical violence against the students, the prison officials found other means of torture: They kept windows shut on sweltering days, then blasted students with water and turned on fans to freeze them.

“I believed firmly that we needed to push and push and not stop pushing. Raise up the rug and pull out the dirt and force people to look at it, to see it.” 

To Lewis, there was nothing more powerful than nonviolent action. The sit-ins and Freedom Rides brought national attention to the South’s continued practice of segregation and Jim Crow policies—Americans no longer could ignore the racial violence occurring there. Lewis and other civil rights leaders, including Nash and Bevel, strongly opposed the SNCC shifting focusing from action to voter registration because of the results their nonviolent actions had produced.

“As I began, I actually wondered if I’d be able to speak at all. My voice quavered at first, but I quickly caught the feeling, the call and response, just like in church. The crowd was with me, hanging on every word, and I could feel it. I soon had the rhythm, as the words went out and the sounds of support came back. These were my experiences I was sharing, and there many in that crows who knew that. These were my friends I was mentioning. The cities I was naming were cities in whose streets I had marched. Many among that sea of men and women knew these things, and they responded.” 

Lewis, then chairman of one of the major civil rights organizations that led the CRM, wanted his March on Washington speech to speak for the thousands of young and old people working to desegregate the American South. Even after the March’s organizers heavily edited the speech, Lewis captured their frustration with the federal government’s slow pace in responding to the continued racial violence and police brutality. Lewis was the first to use terms “‘Black citizens’ and ‘the Black masses’” (227). Decades later, David Remnick, the New Yorker editor, called it the most ferocious of the speeches given the day of the March on Washington.

“Kennedy represented hope and possibility to most of America, White and Black alike, and when he died, that flame of optimism in all of us flickered just a little bit lower.” 

Lewis, like many Black men and women in the US, saw Kennedy as a symbol of hope. They believed that he and his brother Bobby Kennedy would help end segregation and racial discrimination in the country. To Lewis, JFK’s death was the loss of a friend of the movement. For many Black people, the hope that systemic discrimination would end weakened with Kennedy’s death. Kennedy was important not just to the Black community, but was a source of inspiration for many young people. Lewis always believed that when Kennedy died, something died in all Americans.

“We had this act, and now we could just leave it to the Justice Department to enforce it. That was the assumption quite a few people made—an assumption, as we would all soon see, that was sadly mistaken.” 

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, many Americans believed that the country had overcome segregation and was now a more just and inclusive society. Lewis did not share this belief. The law only established formal equal opportunity, but it did not equitably better the lives of the most vulnerable. Lewis ends his memoir discussing the disparities still seen in American society. The fight for human rights in the country is still not over.

“If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now, I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings, in America?” 

Fannie Lou Hammer, who rose from humble beginnings in Mississippi to become one of the most important women leaders in the state’s CRM, gave this testimony to the Credentials Committee at the 1964 Democratic Convention. Hamer discussed the brutality of life in Mississippi for Black men and women, and described how local authorities met her attempts to register voters with violence. Ending her powerful testimony by calling into question whether the US is truly “the land of the free and the home of the brave” when it denies its own people basic human rights, she brought some of the committee members to tears. Even President Johnson recognized her speech’s power—worried, he forced media outlets to cut away from her to an impromptu press conference.

“I never imagined my own organization, SNCC, would ever step aside and tell me to walk alone. It hurt personally, and it hurt in an even deeper sense to know that they were abandoning these people, the people of Selma.” 

SNCC had been like family to Lewis, so their refusal to walk with Lewis in Selma in 1965 to support the people of his home state deeply hurt him and represented a turning point in his relationship with the organization. Bitter debates over the future of the organization took over the SNCC. Because of these ideological debates, the on-the-ground needs of the organization’s campaigns, including supporting the people of Selma, were neglected. Lewis deeply disagreed, walking in Selma without the rest of the SNCC.

“It was not until the next day that I learned what else had happened that evening, that just past 9:30 P.M., ABC Television cut into its Sunday night movie—a premiere broadcast of Stanley Kramer’s Judgement at Nuremberg, a film about Nazi racism—with a special bulletin. News anchor Frank Reynolds came on-screen to tell viewers of a brutal clash that afternoon between state troopers and Black protest marchers in Selma, Alabama. They then showed fifteen minutes of film footage of the attack.” 

Several times, Lewis emphasizes that this march was different from other civil rights marches. In other marches, participants usually sang and cheered before police violently intervened, but the participants in the Selma march were silent and stoic. Their dignity and nonviolence stood in stark contrast to the attacks they faced from state troopers. The fact that this footage played preempted a TV broadcast of a film about Nazi racism and the moral culpability of people who did not speak out against their horrific deeds that 50 million Americans had tuned in to watch was significant. Americans collectively realized that they too were morally culpable in allowing racial violence to continue in the South. Their failure to act made them complicit in the events of Bloody Sunday.

“The road to nonviolence had essentially run out. Selma was the last act.” 

As a result of the events that took place in Selma in 1965, Black Americans not only secured legal protection from discrimination, but also the right to vote. These two laws did not mean, however, that Black people had economic and political power equitable to White Americans. This reality produced the rage and frustration that exploded onto the streets of the US shortly after President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. Lewis also believed it led to the radicalization of the CRM, which ended the focus on nonviolent direct actions.

“As for me, the notion that Blacks needed to do for themselves, to develop independence and self-reliance, was fine. But I wasn’t ready to separate us from the community around us. The future of this nation depending on us learning to come together, not pushing ourselves apart.” 

The more militant arm of SNCC wanted to remove White activists from the organization, renounce nonviolence, and create an economically and culturally separate Black community. Lewis strongly opposed these ideas. He believed that the future of America depended on people learning to come together.

“Dr. King was my friend, my brother, my leader. He was the man, the one who opened my eyes to the world. From the time I was fifteen until the day he died—for almost half my life—he was the person who, more than any other, continued to influence my life, who made me who I was. He made me who I am.” 

Nearly every year since 1965, Lewis led a civil rights pilgrimage to the Southern cities that bore witness to the fight for equality, including Birmingham, Montgomery, and Selma. In contrast, for 50 years, Lewis did not return to Indianapolis, where he first heard the news of Dr. King’s assassination—it was too painful to return to this spot. Lewis considered Dr. King not just a mentor, but an older brother, the first activist that encouraged Lewis to stand up to the wrongs he saw happening all around him in the American South. With King’s death, Lewis felt that something died not only in him, but also in America more broadly. Collectively Americans lost the ability to hope and be optimistic that we could overcome anything.

“I was convinced now more than ever that I had to find a way to get elected to a position where I would have more control over the things I thought ought to be done, where I wouldn’t have to go up to Capitol Hill and answer to some committee chair who was simply using this agency or that to score political points.” 

Lewis had entered politics earlier, running for a congressional seat in 1977; his two and a half years with ACTION solidified his interest in running again. At ACTION, Lewis saw the federal government failing over and over again to uphold its promise to serve all Americans—especially the most vulnerable. Determined that he could do better, Lewis prepared for another bid for a congressional seat.

“But I honestly wasn’t worried. Throughout my years in the movement and throughout this new political career of mine, people had always underestimated me. With my background—the poor farm boy from the woods—and my personality—so unassuming and steady—people tended to assume I was soft, pliable, that I could be bent to meet their needs. They were always amazed, those who didn’t know me, to see me dig in and stand my ground.” 

People often underestimated Lewis because his parents were sharecroppers and because of his quiet demeanor. One example of this is when he ran against Julian Bond. Even Lewis’s own staff were initially unsure that Lewis could beat Bond, who was endorsed by both local and national celebrities and had raise substantially more money than Lewis. Despite this, Lewis beat Bond through his message of fighting for a just and equitable biracial community.