I learned so much from this book, but it's not well organized, so it's a slog.

Full review:

"Hands that picked cotton, now can pick our elected officials." (From a poster made for a get out the vote drive spearheaded by John Lewis.) (11:13:00)

Several of Lewis's friends urged him to run for mayor, but Lewis had no interest in being the chief executive officer of a city. "I prefer to be a legislator," he explained. (11:45:34)

John Lewis was an important man, and the legacy he left behind includes a fascinating personal history that, when studied, lifts the veil on institutional racism going all the way up to the office of the President. I would recommend reading this book because it is so revealing of John Lewis's life and work.

Unfortunately, while I consider it an important book, even necessary reading, I don't consider it a pleasurable read. There is little organization to make such an enormous amount of emotionally compelling information more consumable. I think it was a mistake to tell Lewis's story in a loose chronology, making drudging work of consuming an otherwise interesting story.

That being said, I think readers will find this a fascinating story that is worth the challenges presented by both length and form. I recommend this one to fans of journalistic nonfiction, biographies, civil rights activism, thick books, and social justice.

"...[With] your great education, you must find a way to get in the way. To get in trouble, good trouble. Necessary trouble." (16:06:39)

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. John Lewis is a person and subject worth studying. He's had a huge impact on federal policy, as a congressman, and improved the lives of Black Americans in immeasurable ways. I love the huge amount of information this book transmits about Lewis's career and personal life. He was a fascinating man.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. John Lewis was an important figure, and I love learning more about him. But the book is slow and dry.

2. The organization of the book is practically nonexistent. This book transmits an enormous amount of information but just sort of shovels it at the audience. The lack of organization creates repetition, overwhelming chapters, and pacing issues. Not only that, without organization, the author loses the opportunity to indicate to the readers what he thinks are the most salient points. I have long thought that chronogical organization is the worst way to structure a nonfiction book.

Rating: 🗳🗳🗳🗳 /5 ballot boxes
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Sep 30 '24
Format: Digital arc, NetGalley; Audiobook, Libby
Read this book if you like:
👤 biographies
🗞 long form journalism
🗯 activism
🤝 civil rights and human rights
🟰 social justice

Thank you to the author Raymond Arsenault, publishers Yale University Press, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of JOHN LEWIS: IN SEARCH OF THE BELOVED COMMUNITY. I found an audiobook copy on Libby. Read by Jaime Lincoln Smith. All views are mine.

This biography delves deeply into John Lewis's life, illustrating his profound influence on the Civil Rights movement and later in politics. John Robert Lewis emerged as a pivotal figure in activism, dedicating six decades to effecting change. He gained recognition for his roles as a Freedom Rider and leader of the SNCC. Lewis tirelessly advocated for voting rights, combatting poverty, and held a lengthy tenure in Congress. Despite encountering violence and arrests, he remained steadfast in his commitment to non-violence, consistently advocating for fairness and equality. The book portrays Lewis as a modest yet immensely impactful individual, continuously striving to serve his country and its people. His concept of instigating "Good Trouble" continues to resonate and inspire today.

It's unfortunate that not everyone fully appreciates the significance of John Lewis's contributions. I genuinely urge everyone to read this biography. It offers a genuine understanding of the remarkable impact this Civil Rights hero had on history. For that reason, I highly recommend this one!!

This biography is a deeply powerful story
told about John Lewis. It is filled with first-hand accounts since the author was privileged to know Lewis, as well as packed with meticulously researched information. I found myself reading and setting the book aside to absorb and process, yet eager to pick the book back up again.

The author includes a quote at the beginning where Lewis refers to himself as a “tugboat, not a showboat”. That quote hit me with force because it applied to Lewis so well. He did not seem to be a showy, glamorous person. He had dogged determination that shone from him, and the vignettes and information revealed in the book confirm that. I admired this man, and I am glad that this biography does him justice. Read it. The book is not a quick skim of a story, so take your time to savor it, to appreciate the book and the man.

Almost six hundred pages. That is a lot of reading time. It is also, peculiarly enough, less than I would have liked it to be because the life of Representative Lewis took place in such interesting times, and among such towering figures of US history, that I would gladly have read more.

Most all my readers know I am a committed atheist, and either know or can guess why. It is people like John Lewis, who used their christian beliefs to leave the world a better, more equitable place for as many as he could advocate for, that make me especially bitter about the sleazy rotten souled creeps who embody my idea of christians and christianity. Lewis was such a committed christian that he, the victim of a violent attack by a racist who later regretted his actions and sought forgiveness from Lewis, referred to the man as his brother in a television appearance they made together. This is a prime example of what a friend of Lewis’s called his "moral jujitsu," a means of wrong-footing the hate-spewing opponents who confidently expected him to return fire.

Author Arsenault sites Lewis in his historical milieu with thorough, fully attributed research. He has relied on personal sources who knew him. Thus they, who were there, can give him the real flavor of a Jim Crow rural Alabama upbringing, one filled with the ritual humiliations and deprivations so beloved of our scumbag brethren the white nationalists. While this did radicalize young Lewis, his christian beliefs channeled his radicalism into a serach for justice, fairness, equitability, and all achieved without the rage and hate that marked his opponents. Admirable to me, and to generations of voters who returned him to Congress for much of his adult life.

His skills as a politician were honed in the arena of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, which he was instrumental in forming and from whom he broke away after they began calling for "Black Power," which he saw as provocative and counterproductive with its inherent message of conflict. Lewis opposed the simple reductive sloganeering of the Civil Rights Movement in its post-MLK era. This was, after all, one of the folk who thought they would be murdered in public on Bloody Sunday, in a protest on a bridge now named after him.

What that pointed to was a fact that I, no scholar of Representative Lewis’s life and career, had never known or even considered: John Lewis was not uniformly admired among his colleagues because he favored the cause of human rights over narrowly construed civil rights. He was, for example, taken to task for his vocal opposition to the confirmation of the Supreme Court’s first Black justice, Clarence Thomas...and how right he was about that! He was also a QUILTBAG ally in a community that does not, as a rule, support gay rights...at least not publicly. He very much did, and also supported the ongoing Jewish struggle against antisemitism.

John Lewis emerges from this telling of his life’s story as a man of high principles and powerful moral certainty. It did not make him universally loved, in fact made him a figure of hatred for many, but it gave him the grace of convictions not merely held, but lived. I hope you will spend some hours with John Lewis’s spirit by reading Author Arsennault’s wonderful telling of it. There are illustrative images in the text that enrich the older reader’s memory of the times he helped shape. It is a life worth knowing more about lived in times we still feel reverberations of...though not as positive a feedback as I myownself would prefer.

I remember watching the live stream of the procession of John Lewis's funeral when he passed away. I cried where I sat because I knew we had lost a monumental force for good in US politics.

Arsenault's biography of Lewis's life and career is in depth and well researched, frequently quoting Lewis's own words. There is quite a lot of his youth, but the majority of this book stretches from Lewis's discovery of activism in his efforts to gain a library card from the Pike Country Library through his time working for ACTION all the way up to his strong disavowal of Trump's presidency and the surging of Christian nationalism and far right wing extremism.

While the book does mention some times that he has misstepped in his career, there is a strong focus on how long Lewis has been a proponent such things like universal healthcare, LGBTQ rights, and women's rights.

In Search of a Beloved Community is a powerful recollection of the trials and tribulations of the United States, but is also a strong call to arms, to work towards that perfect union, the ideals of America. We can and should make good and necessary trouble when the powerful and the greedy work to disenfranchise us all.

I look forward to adding this book to my personal library, as well as seeking out Lewis's own autobiography and his essay collection Carry On.

Many thanks to both NetGalley and Yale University Press for the opportunity to review this arc.

Rating: 🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗
Release Date: January 16th, 2024

A writer of many fantastic biographies Arsenault did not disappoint in this poignant life of renowned civil rights leader John Lewis. I found it to be quite academic in nature and I loved it so much. So many lessons on life, liberty and the pursuit and struggles for those attempting to achieve the American dream while in the face of the American struggle.

I studied a lot of historical figures while in pursuit of my Masters of History. One that has always stood out was John Lewis. Born in rural Alabama, ironically close to where I live now, he experienced a lot of racial tension and hatred during his life.

In John Lewis, Raymond Arsenault writes a powerful biography where we see Lewis overcome many challenges. The author has done some amazing research and this story will immortalize Lewis further. Lewis was so instrumental in making sure the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 passed. He has helped to advocate for racial and economic justice, LBGTQ rights, immigration reform, and national health care.

I enjoyed getting to read more in depth about Lewis. He is a fascinating and important historical figure.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for allowing me to read a copy of this book - all thoughts are my own.

Author, Historian and Academic Raymond Arsenault and Yale University Press bring us this important, first full-length comprehensive biography of John Lewis In Search of the Beloved Community. This book is part of Yale University Press’ Black Lives series.

John Lewis started life in rural Alabama and went on to become a Congressman and
was one of the most important activists and advocates in the struggle for civil rights in the United States.

This was a complex and scholarly book and would be really good for someone working on a research paper.

John Lewis, though short in physical stature was a giant when it comes to his place and importance in America and its journey to become its best self. This is a great read about a great man’s life. His voice and presence are so sorely missed

Thanks to NetGalley and Yale University Press for the opportunity to read John Lewis by Raymond Arsenault.

John Lewis was a hero of mine.

This book is, I believe, best described by Mia Bay, "Beautifully written and deeply researched, Arsenault’s biography of John Lewis captures his indomitable courage and steadfast moral clarity.”— Mia Bay, author of Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance