The Power of Hope … and Light

Review by Bill Doughty––

“Why do we struggle? Why must we, as members of the human family, immerse ourselves in the agency of turmoil and unrest to affect the evolution of humankind? Why participate in the work of justice at all?” With those words, the late U.S. Representative John Lewis frames the big picture of life. And he answers those questions in an illuminating way, filled with hope.

“I believe we are all a spark of the divine, and if that spark is nurtured it can become a burning flame, an eternal force of light,” Lewis explains in Reconciliation, the final chapter of his reflective “Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America” (Hachette Books; 2012, 2017).

“Thus, our purpose while we are here, in the most basic sense, is to be a light that shines –– to fully express our gifts so that others might see. When they witness our splendor, when we show them it is possible to shine radiantly even in the darkest night, they begin to remember that they are stars also, meant to light up the world. And if we are brilliant, like a Bobby Kennedy, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Jim Lawson, or a Fannie Lou Hamer, then the intensity of our flame can light the path of freedom for others.”

Lewis says we can "smolder with imagination, burn with creativity, reverberate with love, oneness, and peace. The infinite is possible, but this beauty can only manifest through us.”

Lewis calls for “forgiveness and compassion” in his message of hope, light, and unity. This is an inspiring autobiography of faith, patience, action and love –– which are just some of the chapter names. This book is a great companion to the graphic biography trilogy, “March,” and offers more than a dozen photos along Lewis’s enlightened life’s path.

There is a certain power in an autobiography that a third-person biography cannot achieve as easily. Nevertheless, master historian Jon Meacham comes close in “His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope” (Random House; 2020).

Meacham dedicates the book “for all who toil and fight and live and die to realize the true meaning of America’s creed.” Like Lewis in “Across That Bridge,” Meacham lauds heroes of the civil rights movement and contextualizes Lewis’s life in the promises of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights, acknowledging the founders’ limitations in their space and time.

“If the framers were about limits, Lewis was about horizons. The men who wrote the Constitution believed that human appetites and ambitions were the controlling forces of history. Lewis believed hope shaped history –– the hope that Lincoln’s better angels could prevail if men and women heeded the still, small voice of conscience that suggested the country, and the world, would be better off if Jefferson’s assertion of human equality were truly universal.”

Meacham’s book opens in a terror-filled South of rape, beatings, lynchings, and other forms of dehumanizing African Americans, in a nation overcoming a depression and focused on a world war.

“Blood and death, pain and loss, sacrifice and the hope of redemption: Lewis was coming of age in the most intense of eras, an era the made this young black man in the South something of a child of wartime. George H.W. Bush –– who joined the U.S. Navy on his eighteenth birthday, married when he was twenty, and had his first child by the time he was twenty-two –– once explained the urgency of his generation of World War II veterans as a result of ‘heightened awareness, a sense that everything mattered, that life was to be lived, in Bush’s phrase, ‘on the edge.’ ‘It was a time of uncertainty,’ Bush recalled.”

Civil Rights icons and touchstones Rosa Parks and Emmitt Till

Veterans returning from the war demanded greater equality in society. Lewis was dramatically influenced by the horrible murder of Emmett Till. He was inspired by the heroism of Rosa Parks. He was appalled by the murder of “a kinsman of Lewis’s, Dr. Thomas Brewer,” a voting rights advocate who was shot to death while protesting police brutality. Lewis aligned with Martin Luther King against Strom Thurmond and Dixiecrats who suppressed votes and denied equality to black Americans.

As shown in this biography and in “March,” the highlight of Lewis’s life was attending the inauguration of Barack Obama and receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from the first African American U.S. president.

Meacham does a thorough job of showing Lewis’s struggles and achievements. His epilogue, “Against the Rulers of the Darkness,” seems to be a nod to Lewis’s own call for people to find their own inner light. 

Meacham’s book is good, but the hope and light shine brightest in Lewis’s own words.

WASHINGTON (Jan. 6, 2016) Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) Ray Mabus signs a graphic representation of the future fleet replenishment oiler USNS John Lewis (T-AO 205) after naming the ship in honor of U.S. Representative John Lewis, a civil rights movement hero. USNS John Lewis will be the first ship of the Navy's newest generation of fleet replenishment oilers. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Armando Gonzales/Released)