His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope

Written by:
Jon Meacham
Narrated by:
Jd Jackson , Jon Meacham

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
22
Narrator
5
Release Date
August 2020
Duration
10 hours 0 minutes
Summary
An intimate and revealing portrait of civil rights icon and longtime U.S. congressman John Lewis, linking his life to the painful quest for justice in America from the 1950s to the present—from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Soul of America 
 
John Lewis, who at age twenty-five marched in Selma, Alabama, and was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, was a visionary and a man of faith. Drawing on decades of wide-ranging interviews with Lewis, Jon Meacham writes of how this great-grandson of a slave and son of an Alabama tenant farmer was inspired by the Bible and his teachers in nonviolence, Reverend James Lawson and Martin Luther King, Jr., to put his life on the line in the service of what Abraham Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” From an early age, Lewis learned that nonviolence was not only a tactic but a philosophy, a biblical imperative, and a transforming reality. At the age of four, Lewis, ambitious to become a minister, practiced by preaching to his family’s chickens. When his mother cooked one of the chickens, the boy refused to eat it—his first act, he wryly recalled, of nonviolent protest. Integral to Lewis’s commitment to bettering the nation was his faith in humanity and in God—and an unshakable belief in the power of hope. 
 
Meacham calls Lewis “as important to the founding of a modern and multiethnic twentieth- and twenty-first-century America as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Samuel Adams were to the initial creation of the Republic itself in the eighteenth century.” A believer in the injunction that one should love one's neighbor as oneself, Lewis was arguably a saint in our time, risking limb and life to bear witness for the powerless in the face of the powerful. In many ways he brought a still-evolving nation closer to realizing its ideals, and his story offers inspiration and illumination for Americans today who are working for social and political change. 

This audiobook includes a PDF of the book’s Appendix.
Reviews
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Jessica H.

I felt ashamed and bewildered listening to the details laid out in this book. Many times I had to pause, with my hand over my mouth, and fight back tears. I also learned a great deal about strength, forgiveness and leadership from this book. I am so thankful that Jon has written it and I hope to read more of his works. I value how Jon wanted everything to be accurate, gave proper credit where due, and put together a phenomenal book. Well done.

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Paulette T.

I lived through the years when John Lewis was heroically blazing the trail for the civil rights of American Black citizens. I was born in 1950, ten years after John, I am now ashamed of my apathy at the time. The book was at times very difficult to hear, because of the blatant cruelty and injustice that it documents. I am inspired by his courage, and that of those who follow him. May we, as a Nation, in spite of the setbacks of the last four years, continue to evolve in the direction of the justice and humanity exemplified by John Lewis.

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Anonymous

Excellent book in these turbulent times. Well read by a great author.

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