John Lewis: A Life (Hardcover)

Description

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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, as well as never-before-used FBI files and documents.

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 during the Civil Rights movement helped to bring America a new birth of freedom.

About the Author

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David Greenberg is a professor of history and of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University and a frequent commentator on historical and political affairs. He is the author or editor of several books on American history and politics including Nixon’s Shadow: The History of an Image and Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency. Formerly acting editor of The New Republic and then a columnist for Slate, Greenberg now writes regularly for Politico, Liberties, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. His work has also been featured in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous academic journals. In support of this book Greenberg won awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Cullman Center of the New York Public Library, and the Leon Levy Center for Biography. He holds a PhD in history from Columbia University and a BA from Yale and lives with his family in Manhattan.

Praise For…

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“Greenberg captures Lewis' life, achievements, and times with heartstopping precision….a passionately researched and defining portrait of an American hero.”—Booklist (starred)

"An exemplary life, and an exemplary biography that will rekindle readers’ commitment to racial justice."—Kirkus (starred)

“John Lewis was my friend, steadfast ally, and personal hero. I loved him and miss him very much. Every page of David Greenberg’s biography brings him back to life with rich details that reveal not only his legendary moral compass, but the pressures and practical realities he maneuvered in both protest and politics.” —President Bill Clinton 
 
“Full of revelations and compulsively readable, this book is—at long last—the biography that the great John Lewis deserves.” —Ambassador Andrew J. Young, former mayor of Atlanta and top aide to Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Behold an American life like no other - lived from outsider protest activist to insider savvy politician with epic, spiritual consequences. From hundreds of revealing interviews and exhaustive documentary research, Greenberg captures Lewis's poetic life in lyrical prose.  How dearly we need this model right now of both unsurpassed moral leadership and of the craft of biography.”—David W. Blight, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“Monumental. A profoundly moving, indefatigably researched, and absorbingly written biography of one of the true heroes of the civil rights movements. Greenberg has given us a brilliantly comprehensive, thought provoking, and deeply personal history of an American hero.”—Peniel E. Joseph, author of Stokely: A Life.
 
“David Greenberg’s comprehensive and compelling biography of John Lewis is a landmark book— rich and sober-minded account of one of the most consequential Americans who ever lived. With his perennial commitment to American aspiration and to bearing witness to the gap between that aspiration and tragic reality, often at fundamental peril to himself, Lewis changed a nation. Greenberg’s powerful book shows us how.” —Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House
 
 "An authoritative and indeed definitive biography of a lovely and deeply-principled man who was a true American hero."—David J. Garrow, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Bearing the Cross and Rising Star

“John Lewis: A Life is a book especially for these challenging times when so much of Black history is under attack. David Greenberg’s book provides the kind of in-depth history that spells out in vivid detail how obstacles are overcome via people like John and the many others chronicled in the book.  A much needed roadmap to the effort John embraced—to ‘make America one.’””—Charlayne Hunter Gault, Civil Rights activist
 
"I knew John Lewis from earliest times. David Greenberg's brilliant biography captures all the 'Good Trouble' John wrought to save his country from itself."—David Levering Lewis, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of W. E. B. Du Bois: A Biography 1868-1963

"“This is the book we’ve all been awaiting. Deeply researched, beautifully written, and frequently revelatory, Greenberg’s portrait of John Lewis is as inspiring as the civil-rights hero himself." —Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life