Lewis, John and D'Orso, Michael. Walking with the Wind, Simon & Schuster: New York, 1998.

Book reviewed by: Makala Portis


Walking with the wind by John Lewis was a really great book to read. John Lewis shares his own story about the civil rights movement. He shares stories about hardships that he had to endure. Lewis brought to my attention things that I was not aware of and mentions people who made a huge difference on society and great impacts toward the civil rights movement.

At a young age John Lewis always wanted to make a difference in the world he was living in, a very segregated world. He disliked how he had to use a different bathroom than the whites, how he couldn't sit down and enjoy the ice cream that he just bought, how he had to sit in the balcony of the movie theater and couldn't sit close and see the movie better. He didn't agree with how is parents were working hard in the fields and not getting what they truly deserved for working so hard, all week long for.

John Lewis loved school, he always wanted to go, and during farming season his parents wanted him to stay home and help them in the fields, and that was the case for many African American students. But John Lewis didn't stay home he would hide behind the front porch, waiting for the school bus to come, jump on that bus and go to school. Lewis also notice that the white kids had more privileges as the black students. While he would ride the old bus, he noticed that the white students had nice shiny buses. His school had that old books with writing all over them and names in the front.

While Lewis was in College in Nashville, he went to a meeting, and the speaker was talking about a non violent movement, originating from Gandhi, he knew he had to be a part of this. The students created a group called SNCC a student organization. This group did a series of projects that would help desegregate the south, starting in Nashville with the "sit-ins" this actually changed the desegregation in restaurants even with all the hate violence that came along with it, but this was only the beginning.

This was a very great book, I really enjoyed reading it, Walking With The Wind has really showed me that MANY people were involved in the civil rights movement blacks, whites, and different other races were involved and changed the way Southern blacks were treated. Martin Luther King JR. is usually the only person who history teachers really get into depth about, but he was not the only one who changed America. John Lewis mentioned quite a bit that it was not just a white or black problem, it was an government problem. So even with all the beatings that the blacks received by the whites, or justice not being served by the police with all of that, it wasn't their fault it was the Government not taking action, and the blacks fought very hard for that justice and achieved their goal.