Pillar 1: John R. Lewis as a Student Change Maker

Pillar 1:

Students Are Change Makers John R. Lewis as a Student Change Maker

John R. Lewis is known for his dedicated career as an elected official, commitment to civil rights and social change, and activism leadership dating back to his years as an undergraduate student. 

SNCC poster featuring photograph by Danny Lyon of John R Lewis and other demonstrators kneeling in prayer during a vigil outside the city’s “whites only” swimming pool in the summer of 1962 when JRL initiated a direct-action campaign challenging segregation in Cairo, Illinois, along with the text “Come Let Us Build a New World Together” and "Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee"

JRL's Student History as a Change Maker

1957-1958: College decisions

  • After growing up attending segregated schools, John R Lewis wanted to study for the ministry at his local Troy State College (now Troy University) but at the time it was an all-white institution. Instead, at age 17 he left his small-town home in Alabama to study in Nashville, Tennessee in 1957 at American Baptist Theological Seminary (now American Baptist College) which was predominantly Black.
  • During his first semester, he considered transferring to Troy as an effort to desegregate the institution and he submitted an application in December. After being ignored, he reached out to Dr. King, who he'd been writing letters back-and-forth with since his time as a high schooler, and used his Spring break to travel to Montgomery to meet with Dr. King and other civil rights movement leaders in 1958. After this, he decided with his parents not to pursue admittance to Troy due to fears for his safety and retaliation against his family.

1958-1960: Education in Non-Violence and Grassroots Organization

  • In 1958, at age 18 Lewis attended training sessions with the Highlander Folk School, receiving grassroots and social justice leadership training. It was at Highlander that he had his first integrated meal, inspiring his actions to come in fighting for a desegregated US.
  • Later, he attended a meeting at Spellman College in Atlanta on Nonviolent Resistance to Segregation where he is taught about the long history of pacifist resistance.
  • Lewis also participated in a series of workshops over 4 weeks at his home campus of ABTS on nonviolent confrontation organized by Rev. James Lawson, and based on the writings of Howard Thurman and others. The workshop attendees formed the core of the Nashville Student Movement (NSM). 

1959-1961: The start of Direct Student Action

  • Lewis tested the city’s racially segregated lunch counters in February of 1960, as he and others took part in a long campaign of sit-ins in downtown Nashville at Woolworth's and neighboring businesses as part of a national wave of resistance sparked by activists who refused to leave a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1959. Due to their efforts, by May Nashville became the first city in the segregated South to integrate its lunch counters.
  • In April of 1960, Lewis attended a conference organized by Ella Baker of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and along with students from other universities across the country, founded the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 

1962: The Freedom Rides and the continuing pursuit of education

  • During his senior year in May of 1961, at the age of 21 Lewis volunteered and became one of the 13 original Freedom Riders organized by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) with the goal of reaching New Orleans to challenge segregated seating on buses. Throughout their journey he and his fellow riders were subjected to increasing levels of violence and were imprisoned multiple times.
  • On May 24th, 1961, Lewis was arrested for "disorderly conduct" - aka, refusing to follow segregation laws and using an "all-white" restroom at the bus stop in Jackson Mississippi. After several days at the county jail, he among seventy-five men (black and white, students, professors, ministers) arrested for their involvement at the freedom rides, we subject to 37-days incarceration in the maximum security unit of Mississippi’s Parchman penitentiary. On July 7th, 1961, he was released.
  • During his imprisonment, Lewis missed his Commencement ceremony for his graduation from ABTS. Nevertheless, Lewis graduated ABTS and was ordained as a Baptist minister.
  • Upon his return to Tennessee, Lewis enrolled at Fisk University to pursue a Bachelor's degree in Religion and Philosophy.
  • During this time at Fisk, he worked with fellow SNCC activists to support the efforts of local activists in Cairo, Illinois who were fighting for the desegregation of the swimming pool, restaurants, and other facilities in 1962.

1963-1965: Stepping up and leading SNCC

  • As a founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis was elected as the National Chairman of the committee in 1963, which led him to take a leave of absence from Fisk and go to Selma, Alabama.
  • As part of the "Big Six" along with Dr. King, he helped organize the March on Washington in 1963, at which he was the youngest keynote speaker at 23 years old speaking just before Dr. King's famed "I Have a Dream" speech.
  • Lewis then coordinated the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign for voter registration in 1964 with the goal to register black voters in Mississippi and to engage college student activists in aiding the campaign.
  • Lewis then continued by supporting voter registration efforts during the 1965 Selma, Alabama voting rights campaign, and became nationally known during his prominent role in the Selma to Montgomery marches as he led the first march across Edmund Pettus Bridge in what would become known as "Bloody Sunday" due to the brutality faced at the hands of State troopers. Lewis suffered a fractured skull in the attack, but returned less than a week later to speak at a federal hearing and then participated another week later in the March to Montgomery. In response to the nation enraged by the coverage of the atrocious violence, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed that summer.

1966-1967: Community work and second graduation

  • As his position as the Chairman of SNCC ended in 1966, John R Lewis continued to act as an agent of social change. In 1966, he co-founded the Southern Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam. He also served as the associate director of New York’s Field Foundation supporting civil rights and social change from 1966-1967. Following that, he acted as a director and representative for Atlanta’s Southern Regional Council for Voter Registration programming.
  • During this time he completed his studies and earned his B.A. in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University in 1967.

 

Self Reflections 

A letter to his younger self, John Lewis shares his journey.

A collection of John Lewis speaking about his history up through the Civil Rights Movement

Flocabuary's "John Lewis & Nonviolent Action"

"This song was written and performed by Jaden, a ninth-grade student and the 2019 winner of Flocabulary’s Black History Rap Contest. The song focuses on civil rights activist and US Representative John Lewis, a leader of the sit-ins, the Freedom Rides, and the fight for voting rights. Lewis remained dedicated to nonviolent action in the face of extreme violence and arrests."

Moving Forward

Ahead, you will see how other UCSC students have engaged as change makers.