Historians Look Again at Life and Profession of Civil Rights Activist and Consultant John Lewis in New Biography

Practically 4 years after his demise at 80 years previous, a biographer is wanting again on the life and profession of civil rights activist and Georgia Consultant John Lewis.

In response to a press launch from Simon & Schuster, Rutgers College historical past professor David Greenberg is about to publish a biography of Lewis titled John Lewis: A Life later this yr.

Described as, “The definitive biography of a Civil Rights icon whose outstanding profession spanned 60 years, from lunch counter sit-ins via Black Lives Matter,” Greenberg’s new ebook will inform the historical past of Lewis’ profession in politics and group organizing, starting along with his childhood in rural Alabama and ending along with his service within the Home of Representatives.

It would additionally recall Lewis’ work as a Freedom Rider who helped with the mixing of bus stations, a protestor who participated in sit-ins in Nashville and even his journey to changing into the youngest individual to talk on the 1963 March on Washington. The ebook may also contact on one of many darkest moments of his profession — when he was practically crushed to demise by Alabama state troopers in Selma throughout a march that will later turn into infamously named “Bloody Sunday.”

Greenberg, who has labored on histories of American political figures like former President Richard Nixon in Nixon’s Shadow: The Historical past of an Picture, will draw on interviews with Lewis “and a whole bunch of others who knew him at numerous levels of his life,” together with former presidents Invoice Clinton and Barack Obama. The upcoming biography may also make use of never-before-seen FBI paperwork and pictures of the late consultant giving an interview from a hospital mattress within the aftermath of the Selma beatings.

John Lewis: A Life will “[present] new particulars within the lifetime of a person who lived with braveness and conviction, and who resisted hating those that hated him,” per the discharge.

This is not the primary time writers have seemed again on Lewis’ 60-year profession — in 2014, six years earlier than his demise, Lewis was portrayed onscreen by Stephan James in Ava DuVernay’s Selma, which chronicled Martin Luther King, Jr.’s journey to guide the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

Years earlier than his demise, Lewis additionally revealed a memoir reflecting on his involvement within the Civil Rights Motion: Strolling with the Wind: A Memoir of the Motion. That ebook offered a firsthand account of his management within the Nashville organizations, the marches and extra.

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David Greenberg’s John Lewis: A Life is about to hit cabinets on October 1 and is out there for preorder now, wherever books are offered.