Walking with the Wind by John Lewis

Book Review by: Ellen Stecker

Walking with the Wind shows a lot of detail about the civil rights movement. John Lewis is writing his memory of how he experienced the movement directly in his life. The way he writes is from a time where he goes back and revisits the places in his history. Some of the places have changed over time, but a few of the places have some remnants or a person that connects to his past. John Lewis writes detailed descriptions, and I am impressed at his memory.

From his childhood, John Lewis was different from the rest of his family. His family came from poor roots with no education. Lewis grew up on a farm. One of the things he did as a child was preach to his chickens. His family would make fun of him, but I think it set him apart from the beginning of his life. One of his uncles thought Lewis was destined for something big. Lewis listened to Martin Luther King and was a huge fan. He wanted an education, but education was expensive. Actually, it was his mom who found out about NBT, Nashville Baptist Theology College. NBT had a contract program where students could work for tuition, room, and board. Living in a dorm, Lewis found himself surrounded by older men. There were many discussions and practice sermons on theology. Lewis, however, was more interested in the social gospel--what was going on with the people out in the world than with their salvation. Lewis said, “I think we need to be less concerned with getting people up to those streets paved with gold and more concerned about what people are dealing with right down here on the streets of Nashville.”

Lewis got involved in the student movement in Nashville. Through a conference and being taught and led by James Lawson, Lewis and other students were prepared to make a difference. They started by doing sit-ins. Sit-ins were going in to grocery stores to places where they had counters to order food. The counters only served white people, and the owners hadn’t been challenged to serve blacks. From the sit-ins, the Nashville student movement grew into a national movement. Students in the surrounding cities got involved. In Nashville, the students got sent to jail. They talked to the mayor and actually got him to say he agreed the counters in stores should be desegregated.

The part of the book I liked the best was the freedom ride. A freedom ride is a group of riders going on a bus, stopping at the bus stations, and using the facilities where there were signs saying whites only. It was supposed to be desegregated according to a law because travel is for everyone, but it was a big deal because cities still had “whites only” signs. The reason why I liked learning about the freedom ride is because I didn’t know what kind of protests the blacks did to fight for their freedom. I didn’t know what risks they took and what risk whites took to support desegregation. It was a very dangerous time, and it reminded me how blessed I am to be living in a place where all races are accepted and treated equally.

What impressed me the most about the author John Lewis is how he personalized his calling to be a part of the civil rights movement. He was respected by a lot of people, and it was from James Lawson that he first learned the approach of nonviolence. There was a lot of violence in the civil rights movement, but the way nonviolence is described to train those getting involved with the movement was really deep and moving to me:

“Suffering, though, can be nothing more than a sad and sorry thing without the presence on the part of the sufferer of a graceful heart, an accepting and open heart, a heart that holds no malice toward the inflictors of his or her suffering. This is a difficult concept to understand, and it is even more difficult to internalize, but it has everything to do with the way of nonviolence. We are talking about love here. Not romantic love. Not the love of one individual for another. Not loving something that is lovely to you. This is a broader, deeper, more all-encompassing love. It is a love that accepts and embraces the hateful and hurtful. It is a love that recognized the spark of the divine in each of us, even in those who would raise their hand against us, those we might call our enemy. This sense of love realizes that emotions of the moment and constantly shifting circumstances can cloud that divine spark. Pain, ugliness and fear can cover it over, turning a person toward anger and hate. It is the ability to see through those layers of ugliness, to see further into a person than perhaps that person can see into himself, that is essential to the practice of nonviolence.”

This passage on nonviolence reminds me of the kind of love it took for Jesus to be nonviolent and face the violence of his crucifixion. It reminds me of a love that Christians should have when coming face to face with the violence of a human world. I really enjoyed reading about the Civil Rights Movement. There is always more to learn and more applications to see when reading about history.