I’ll admit I knew next to nothing about John Lewis before this. The first I had heard of him was the sit-in he co-led in The House in 2016 trying to get a vote for stricter background checks for guns. I knew that he was part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s but I didn’t realize how big a part he had been.

The story is told in the background of the Obama Inauguration and in doing so made me realize how big a moment that election really was. I’m not so removed from reality to realize that in a country steeped in racism, electing a black president was a big, nay, huge deal, but I hadn’t realized how big until this book. I will never be able to fully empathize with what black people went through, the institutionalized degradation, the socially accepted violence, the unwarranted humiliation, not as a white man. But to see people like Mr. Lewis suffer brutal violence because they had the unmitigated gall to want be served lunch or because they had the self-righteous audacity to want vote gives me a greater appreciation of their mental fortitude. What’s more is that the organization in which Mr. Lewis gained a reputation was called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. I’m a pacifist and not a little afraid of confrontation but those are logical reactions. Being spit on or being locked in a restaurant with the fumigators running would surely cause me to react emotionally and that emotion would be rage.

Yet Mr. Lewis and his fellow protestors endured this and so much more without resorting to violence themselves. And when the pressure got to the Federal Government and they finally put the wheels in motion to pass the Civil Rights Act, they asked that the marches and protests stop because they wanted to give those poor racists in The South a chance to cool down. They refused the cry for patience. As well they should have. They had suffered centuries of oppression and had seen Jim Crow surface in the wake of being freed from slavery. They would only stop when they got that for which they marched.

I really cannot speak highly enough about this book. Many and varied are the accounts of The Civil Rights Movement. There is no wrong answer to the question: which should I read? For me, this one brought me to the edge (and beyond) of tears time after time. And in the wake of the election of Mr. Trump, the vitriol is rising again. I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m scared for the direction of this country. Reading about Martin Luther King in school, it seemed like his fight was over and won. But having heard that late great reverend’s holiday referred to as Black People Day, I know the battle rages still. Books like this, I take as a message of hope. We have come far since lynchings were part of everyday life but we still have more of the road to equality to travel. Seeing that it’s possible to protest yet not resort to violence, while at the same time proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are not weak, gives me hope.