John Lewis: A Life

FAIN: FZ-292157-23

David Greenberg
Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8559)

Research and writing contributing to a complete biography of civil rights activist and former congressman, John Lewis (1940-2020).

John Lewis: A Life in Politics (under contract with Simon & Schuster) will be the first full-fledged biography of the civil rights leader and U.S. congressman. From a young age, John Lewis was an indispensable part of historic campaigns for racial equality, from the 1960s sit-ins to the 1963 March on Washington to the 1965 Selma voting rights march. Ousted as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966, he turned to politics, joining Robert Kennedy’s presidential bid, leading the Voter Education Project, serving in the Carter administration, and in 1986 winning a seat in Congress. The book spans his activism and political career, his rise in the House Democratic leadership, and emergence as a moral beacon in dark times. In narrating Lewis’s life, the book explores the relationship of grassroots activism to institutional politics; the fate of Lewis’s nonviolent and integrationist ideals; and history's own role in shaping the vision of those pursuing social change.

Associated Products

John Lewis: A Life (Book)
Title: John Lewis: A Life
Author: David Greenberg
Editor: Bob Bender, Dawn Davis
Abstract: A comprehensive, authoritative biography of civil rights icon John Lewis, “the conscience of the Congress,” drawing on interviews with Lewis and approximately 275 others who knew him at various stages of his life, including Presidents Obama and Clinton. Born into poverty in rural Alabama, Lewis would become second only to Martin Luther King, Jr. in his contributions to the civil rights movement. He was a Freedom Rider who helped to integrate bus stations in the South, a leader of the Nashville sit-in movement, the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington, and the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which he made into one of the major civil rights organizations. He may be best remembered as the victim of a vicious beating by Alabama state troopers at the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he nearly died. Greenberg’s biography traces Lewis’s life through the post-civil rights years, when he headed the Voter Education Project, which enrolled millions of African American voters across the South. The book reveals the little-known story of his political ascent first locally in Atlanta, and then as a member of Congress. Tapped to be a part of the Democratic leadership in Congress, he earned respect on both sides of the aisle for the sacrifices he had made on behalf of nonviolent integration in the South and came to be known as the “conscience of the Congress.” Thoroughly researched and dramatically told, Greenberg’s biography captures John Lewis’s influential career through documents from dozens of archives, interviews with hundreds of people who knew Lewis, and long-lost footage of Lewis himself speaking to reporters from his hospital bed following his severe beating on “Bloody Sunday” in Selma. With new details about his personal and professional relationships, John Lewis: A Life is the definitive biography of a man whose heroism helped to bring America a new birth of freedom.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://www.amazon.com/John-Lewis-Life-David-Greenberg/dp/1982142995?
Primary URL Description: Amazon page
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Type: Other
ISBN: 1982142995
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

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