U.S. Representative John Lewis, who died July 2020, was the youngest protégé of Civil Rights giants Martin Luther King, Andrew Young, and Ralph Abernathy. Lewis became one of the main speakers at the March on Washington, D.C., in 1963. Lewis believed the wisdom he learned from the speeches, marches, and late-night conversations from his mentors shaped and sharpened his own run for the U.S. Congress for 17 terms.
In these pages, Lewis shares his experiences with his mentors and heroes who gave him courage to get into “good trouble,” facing Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettis Bridge in Selma. His wife also gave him quiet counsel. Lewis’s voice and energy easily flows from the pages as a man saturated in the faith of the African American Baptist tradition, something that made me smile often.
This compact little book would make a great gift to high school and college graduates, adults looking for encouragement from a hopeful companion. It is a reminder that being Christian for justice is more than sending a check or writing a terse letter to your politician. Like John Lewis, we can get our shoes and bodies involved to become better racial justice allies.(Grand Central Publishing)
About the Author
Reginald Smith is the Director of Diversity for the Christian Reformed Church. He attends Madison Square Church in Grand Rapids, Mich.