Olivia: Alright Jackson, you've read the book. Give me your five-word review of John Lewis's life. Jackson: Faith, hope, courage... and getting punched. Olivia: Perfect. Because today, we're talking about how those first three things gave him the strength for the last one, and so much more. Jackson: I’m ready. That five-word summary really doesn't do it justice, but it’s a start. The story is just… immense. Olivia: It truly is. We're diving into His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham. And what's fascinating is that Meacham, a Pulitzer-winning presidential historian, doesn't write this as a typical, cradle-to-grave biography. It’s been called a 'theological biography.' Jackson: A theological biography? What does that even mean? Like a biography of his soul? Olivia: Exactly. It’s less about the day-to-day political career and more about the spiritual engine that drove one of America's greatest moral leaders. It’s about the why behind his actions. And that engine was forged in some really unexpected places, starting with, of all things, a flock of chickens in rural Alabama. Jackson: Wait, chickens? Okay, you have to explain this. I’m picturing a coop full of very attentive, feathered parishioners.

Olivia: You're not far off! As a young boy in Pike County, Alabama, John Robert Lewis was in charge of the family's chickens. And he took this job incredibly seriously. He felt a deep connection to them. He would preach sermons to them, gathering them in the yard as his congregation. Jackson: He was literally preaching to chickens. That’s amazing. Olivia: It gets deeper. He would conduct funerals for them when they died. He even tried to baptize one, though it accidentally drowned, an event that he said haunted him. Most importantly, he felt such a profound sense of love and responsibility for them that he refused to eat chicken. His parents would have to trick him into eating it. Jackson: Wow. So this wasn't just a kid playing around. This was something fundamental about his character from the very beginning. Olivia: Precisely. Meacham argues this was Lewis’s first lesson in agape—that unconditional, all-encompassing love that the New Testament talks about. It’s a love for all beings, a recognition of the divine spark in everything. His first church was that chicken coop, and his first lesson was compassion for the powerless. Jackson: And that compassion, that agape, becomes the foundation for everything else. It’s not just an abstract idea he learned in a seminary later. He felt it in his bones from childhood. Olivia: Yes, and that feeling was supercharged when he first heard Martin Luther King, Jr. on the radio. Lewis was a teenager, and he heard King deliver a sermon called “Paul’s Letter to the American Christians.” King’s core message was electrifying for Lewis. He said, and I’m paraphrasing here, that a Christian’s ultimate allegiance is not to the state, not to any man-made institution, but to God. And if an earthly institution conflicts with God’s will, it is a Christian’s duty to stand against it. Jackson: That is a radical idea, especially in the 1950s South. He's essentially giving a theological permission slip for civil disobedience. He’s saying, ‘The laws of segregation are in conflict with the laws of God, so you must break them.’ Olivia: It was a lightbulb moment for Lewis. He said it felt like King was speaking directly to him. This was the Social Gospel in action—the idea that faith isn't just about personal salvation and getting to heaven. It’s about bringing justice and the 'Kingdom of God' down to Earth. As one theologian put it, "Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus." Jackson: So this is the 'theological biography' part. It’s not just that Lewis was a good person who happened to be religious. His religion was the operating system for his activism. Olivia: It was the entire source code. This is why Meacham frames him as a kind of modern-day saint. In 1975, Time magazine actually ran a cover story called 'Saints Among Us' and featured Lewis alongside figures like Mother Teresa. Jackson: Okay, but the word 'saint' can be tricky. It makes someone seem perfect, untouchable, almost not human. The book has been praised for being inspiring, but some critics have called it a bit of a 'hagiography'—an overly adoring biography. Does calling him a saint risk putting him on a pedestal we can’t relate to? Olivia: That's a fantastic point, and Meacham addresses it. The sainthood he’s talking about isn’t about being flawless. It’s about what the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer called 'costly grace.' It’s the idea that true faith costs you something. It might cost you your comfort, your safety, your reputation, or even your life. A saint, in this context, is someone willing to suffer and sacrifice for a belief in something greater. Jackson: So, it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being willing to pay the price. Olivia: Exactly. And John Lewis spent his entire life paying that price. That willingness to suffer wasn't just a theory he held. It was a highly trained, strategic discipline. This wasn't about being passive; it was about waging a different kind of war.

Jackson: A different kind of war. I like that framing, because I think a lot of people today hear 'nonviolence' and they picture something passive, almost weak. Just letting things happen to you. Olivia: And that is the biggest misconception. The nonviolence that Lewis and his colleagues practiced was confrontational, disciplined, and incredibly courageous. It was a weapon, and they had to be trained to wield it. When Lewis was a student in Nashville, he fell in with a group led by Reverend James Lawson, who was a master strategist of nonviolent action. Jackson: What did that training even look like? How do you practice getting attacked? Olivia: It was intense. They held workshops in a church basement. They would role-play. Students would pretend to be a screaming, racist mob, yelling every slur they could think of at the other students, who were playing the protestors. They would blow cigarette smoke in their faces, push them, spill drinks on them. The goal was to train the body and the spirit to endure hatred without responding in kind. Jackson: That sounds psychologically brutal. They were basically running simulations of their own future trauma. Olivia: They were. Lawson taught them that nonviolence was 'love in action.' It wasn't about suppressing anger; it was about channeling it into a powerful, loving force—what they called 'Soul Force.' The goal wasn't to defeat the person attacking you, but to awaken their conscience. To show them the ugliness of their own hate in the mirror of your dignity. Jackson: To make them see themselves. Wow. And this training was put to the test very, very quickly. Olivia: Almost immediately. Let’s talk about the Nashville sit-ins. On Saturday, February 27, 1960, Lewis and other students walked into the downtown Woolworth's. They were dressed in their Sunday best—suits and ties, dresses. They sat at the whites-only lunch counter and politely asked for service. Jackson: And I’m guessing they were politely refused. Olivia: They were. And then the mob arrived. A group of young white men came in and started tormenting them. They were pulling them off their stools, spitting on them, punching them. One student, a young woman, was pulled to the floor and kicked. Another had a lit cigarette put out on his back. And through all of it, the students did not raise a hand. They just curled into a ball on the floor to protect themselves. Jackson: That is just infuriating. And where were the police during all this? Olivia: The police were there. They stood by and watched the attacks. And then, when they finally acted, they didn't arrest the white mob. They arrested the eighty-one Black students, including John Lewis, and charged them with disorderly conduct. Jackson: You have got to be kidding me. They are the ones being assaulted, and they get arrested for disorderly conduct? That is the definition of a broken system. Olivia: It was the system working exactly as it was designed to. But this is where the strategy of nonviolence shines. The students had a motto: 'Jail, not bail.' They refused to pay the fines. They chose to fill the jails, turning their arrest into another form of protest. It became a badge of honor. Jackson: They weaponized their own imprisonment. That’s brilliant. But on a human level, how did they not fight back? If someone put a cigarette out on my back, my first instinct would not be agape love. Olivia: Lewis said it was the hardest thing he ever had to do. But they believed that if they responded with violence, they would lose the moral high ground. The story would become 'a brawl at a lunch counter.' By absorbing the violence, they forced the world to see the truth: peaceful, dignified students were being brutalized for asking for a hamburger. They were, in Lewis's words, trying to "redeem the soul of America." You can't do that by becoming the thing you're fighting against. Jackson: That's a powerful distinction. It’s not about winning the fight; it’s about changing the nature of the fight itself. And the violence they faced only escalated from there, right? The Freedom Rides were even more dangerous. Olivia: Much more. The Freedom Rides of 1961 were designed to test a Supreme Court ruling that had desegregated interstate travel. The activists, black and white together, would ride buses through the Deep South and deliberately use the 'wrong' waiting rooms and restrooms. They knew it would be dangerous. Lewis said he wrote a will and basically prepared to die. Jackson: And he almost did. Olivia: He almost did. In Anniston, Alabama, a mob firebombed their bus. They held the doors shut, trying to burn the riders alive. The riders only escaped because the fuel tank exploded and the mob scattered for a moment. When they got to Birmingham, another mob was waiting, organized by the infamous police commissioner Bull Connor, who gave the KKK fifteen minutes to attack the riders before police would show up. Lewis was beaten with a wooden Coca-Cola crate and left unconscious in a pool of his own blood. Jackson: It’s just unimaginable. The level of organized, sanctioned hate. And yet, they kept going. After all that, they decided to continue the ride. Olivia: That was the key. The Kennedy administration wanted them to stop, to have a 'cooling off' period. But Diane Nash, another student leader, told a government official, "Do you understand, we all signed our wills last night. We know somebody will die, but we are not going to let nonviolence be overcome by violence." If they stopped, violence would have won. Jackson: So it all connects. The love for the chickens, the idea of the 'Beloved Community,' the brutal training in the church basement... it was all building toward this capacity to absorb unimaginable hate without becoming hateful. That's the 'Soul Force.'

Olivia: Exactly. And Meacham's point, and Lewis's own in the afterword of the book, is that this isn't just a history lesson. This is a living philosophy. Lewis wrote, 'Now as before, we have to choose... between community and chaos.' That choice is still right in front of us, every single day. Jackson: It's easy to look back now and think, 'Of course they were on the right side of history.' But the book includes public opinion data from that time, and it's absolutely shocking. Olivia: It is. In 1961, a national poll found that 57% of Americans thought the Freedom Rides and sit-ins would hurt the cause of integration. Even in 1966, after years of this struggle, 85% of white Americans felt that the demonstrations were hurting the cause. The majority was not on their side. Jackson: That’s a staggering reality check. They weren't just fighting the KKK and the police; they were fighting the indifference and disapproval of a huge portion of the country. It makes their perseverance even more heroic. Olivia: It does. They were trying to redeem a nation that, for the most part, didn't want to be redeemed. They believed, as the old spiritual says, that 'trouble don't last always.' They had to have faith in a future they couldn't see. Jackson: It really makes you think about today. When we see injustice, our feeds are filled with rage and call-outs. It's a very different kind of energy. Is there still a place for this kind of radical, disciplined, loving resistance? Olivia: That's the question Lewis leaves us with. He said, and this is a quote that has stuck with me, "Hate is too heavy a burden to bear." In a world that feels so full of hate, online and off, what would it look like to consciously choose not to carry it? To find a different kind of strength? Jackson: A powerful thought to end on. It’s not about being passive, but about choosing a more difficult, and maybe more powerful, weapon. We'd love to hear what you think. Find us on our socials and share your thoughts. Does this kind of nonviolence still have a place in today's struggles for justice? Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.