Editorial Reviews:
The son of an Alabama sharecropper, and now a sixth-term United States Congressman, John Lewis has led an extraordinary life, one that found him at the epicenter of the civil rights movement in the late '50s and '60s. As Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lewis was present at all the major battlefields of the movement. Arrested more than forty times and severely beaten on several occasions, he was one of the youngest yet most courageous leaders. Written with charm, warmth, and honesty, Walking with the Wind offers rare insight into the movement and the personalities of all the civil rights leaders-what was happening behind the scenes, the infighting, struggles, and triumphs. Lewis takes us from the Nashville lunch counter sit-ins to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where he led more than five hundred marchers on what became known as "Bloody Sunday." While there have been exceptional books on the movement, there has never been a front-line account by a man like John Lewis. A true American hero, his story is "destined to become a classic in civil rights literature." (Los Angeles Times)
John Lewis is an authentic American hero, a modest man from the most humble of beginnings who left a rural Alabama cotton farm 40 years ago and strode into the forefront of the civil rights movement. One of the young people who brought the teachings of Ghandi and King to the lunch counters of Nashville in 1960, Lewis suffered taunts and threats, beatings and arrests. He spoke at the historic 1963 March on Washington and became chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The nation, tuned to the nightly news, watched in horror as state troopers clubbed him viciously, fracturing his skull as he led a march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Today, he's the only member of Congress who can be proud of having been carried off to jail more than 40 times. With the help of a collaborator, journalist Michael D'Orso, this remarkable man has written a truly remarkable book. Walking with the Wind is a deeply moving personal memoir that skillfully balances the intimate and touching recollections of the deeply thoughtful Lewis with the intense national drama that was the civil rights movement.
Customer Reviews:
Displaying 1 to 5 of 48 total reviews (Page 1 of 10):
 In the year 2008, still a must read for all......
I had become interested in learning more about the civil rights movement during this year's presidential election, so when I came across this book "by accident" when visiting a local book store I decided to give it a try. This book, without a doubt, is one of the best books I have ever read. "Walking with the Wind" is a compelling first-hand account of the civil rights movement from the perspective of one man who was on the front lines of the movement from day one. John Lewis was and still is a hero for all human-kind: a fierce, determined patriot who faced hatred and bigotry with a clear vision for a desegregated nation. His storytelling of that time in American history reads like a novel, filled with passion, detail, and personal insight into the core of the movement.
I cried many times reading this beautifully written memoir: cried for the suffering and hatred experienced by African Americans at the hands of supposedly Christian white people; cried for the depravity of heart and soul in those who inflicted such horrors upon others just because of the color of their skin; cried for the courage and hope of all the men and women who placed their lives at risk so that we might all be free of discrimination and segregation; cried for being inspired by those who came before me, with a newly found conviction to help make my country a more unified place for all to live.
This book should be required reading in every high school in this country. I am in my early 50s and needed a refresher course in the civil rights movement; my children barely know of it. We can never be allowed to forget this tragic, ugly period in our history, just like we can never be allowed to forget the Holocaust. John Lewis has provided us with a primer on the 1960s civil rights movement that is a compelling, passionate, probing, insightful look not only at the movement but also of the incredible human spirit.
This book is not to be missed!! Invaluable Primer on Civil Rights and Nonviolence
John Lewis' memoir tells of his pivotal role in the civil rights movement as , literally, its most prominent "fall guy." John Lewis was physically at the forefront of the major civil rights events-getting beaten, arrested, and ultimately, prevailing in the struggle to desegregate the south. He was one of the original Freedom Riders as well as the first person across the Pettis Bridge in Selma. He explains all of his actions and ethics through a mirror of highly disciplined non-violence that leaves the reader in awe of his amazing achievements. In sum, this book is a "must-read" for anyone interested in the civil rights movement.  A Walk with the Wind not a Work of Art
The junior standard-bearer for civil rights during the era of segregation recounts his rise through those times toward his own national recognition. It's an intimate and introspective offering. It's a unique perspective.
After his Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, crashes, he self-imposes exile as an "invisible man" in New York working as a grant officer for a private charity:
(p398) "New York was just too big for me. I didn't feel as if I could get my hands around it. In the South, communities seemed comprehensible, manageable, workable. You could see where things started and ended. You could get a grasp of the place and the people, as well as their problems. And you could respond to those problems with solutions that might work...."
He always has the South on his mind where there remains "a spirit instilled by the civil rights movement that is still felt and remembered today, a spirit that was not and is not felt in the same way in the North. That, I believe, is the huge difference between the legacy of the civil rights movement in the North and the South. All the great battlegrounds of the civil rights movement were in the South. That fact is cherished and remembered by the people there." (p 208).
There is confusion in "Feel Angry with Me". The chapter describes the fall of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. Their violent deaths in defense of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law during Freedom Summer (1964) fixed the nation's eyes on racist brutality in Mississippi. The confusion is in character casting and mixing the ridiculous partying with his friend, actress, Shirley MacLaine and his virginity in the same chapter with the sublime. Here, especially, the book sacrifices continuity to rigid chronology.
In and out of church - and on both sides of the pulpit - his cast of characters is most colorful, including a prominent one (not MacLaine) today facing bizarre criminal charges. So many stories within the author's story could make for a better book than a strict chronology.
The author alludes to his motivation to influence the masses, (p 400) "I felt the spirit, the hand of the Lord, the power of the Bible -- all of those things -- but only when they flowed through the church and out into the streets. As long as God and His teachings were kept inside the wall of a sanctuary, as they were when I was young, the church meant next to nothing to me." Like a good, "whooping" preacher, he is, at times, poetic. It's some of his best stuff.
Congressman Lewis is no great hero, though he has a measure of both -- greatness of association to the movement he led until the times turned violent -- and heroism for holding to his sometimes politically incorrect beliefs, though not sufficiently incorrect for this reviewer. And his book is not great literature. It is his gift to us with an interest in non-violent social change. Pesonal journey in Civil Rights Era
John Lewis's powerful and moving retelling of his journey through the
Civil Rights years, much of it in leadership positions, is a walk through
important American history. His clarity of purpose, values, honed by the
beatings and jailings of those years shine through it all. This personal
insight into events we read about in history makes it real, and makes us
admire the courage and persistence of people like John Lewis. In our present
times of struggle over issues of war, environment and economic fairness,
we need both a reminder of this historical struggle and a next generation
to press us to make changes, to make a difference. A must read for anyone
concerned about our present times. Walking With The People
Ever since I came to the U.S. I learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy of non-violence, I always wanted to learn more about the civil rights movement because of the way African American citizens overcame their obstacles in a non-violent way.
Walking with the wind is a memoir of the author John Lewis, the book begins at his home town where he was raised and learned the meaning of discrimination at an early age. The book describes his whole life how he was discriminated and how became involved with the movement, and how he later on became chair man of the SNCC.
The book also has a part where it only describes the life of John Lewis after the movement, what he does and what happens to all of his close friends, this is at the end of the book, but also talks about how he tries to become something important in U.S. politics.
My favorite part of the whole book is when John Lewis is watching the presidential elections of 1976, when he sees that Jimmy Carter was elected he begins to cry because like he says, he finally sees the hands that picked cotton, picking a president, he cries because he sees that all his hard work pays off, by the government counting the black vote.
The knowledge that John Lewis wants to pass down to readers is the struggle of all African American people to gain freedom and rights, he wants the new generation of people of color to know how much the old generation had to go through to gain all the freedom kids posses these days.
This book is boring, there is almost no action, it is mostly talking about politics, so do not read this book if you are not hooked by memoirs. It takes time to get into the good stuff, like for example, there are parts where the author describes the way police responded in a violent way to a non-violent protest, there are many occasions like this through out the whole book.
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