John Lewis Research Paper

Life is like a serpent or a spider: shedding its skin, regrowing new limbs, but most importantly, changing. Few others can say they have shed the same skin John Lewis had. But who was John Lewis? In March Book One by Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, John Lewis was a son and civil rights activist who made change happen. Lewis grew up in the Southern United States in the 40s and 50s and knew how different it was from the North. However, he did not experience the difference until he traveled outside his home state of Alabama to Buffalo, New York in 1951 on a trip with his uncle. Buffalo wasn't as intense about its racial segregation as the South was when John Lewis visited. Many significant turning points developed in John Lewis’s life. Many influences …show more content…
King’s message hit me like a bolt of lightning”. He applied the principles of the church to what was happening now, today. It was called the Social Gospel– and I felt like he was preaching directly to me.” (Lewis 56). The essence of Lewis’s statement is that the use of him being hit like a bolt of lightning grabs the attention that this message was a turning point in his life. I would also argue that when Lewis said “I went to the school library on Monday to find out everything I could about this man.” (Lewis 56). John began his research on Mr. King to find out more about him cause that’s how big of an influence he had on him. If it wasn’t for the curiosity that John Lewis had about Mr. King, he wouldn’t have been such an influential civil rights activist. Another turning point in John Lewis's life was the ruling of Brown V. the Board of Education unconstitutional. In his book March, he quotes, “The doctrine of SEPARATE BUT EQUAL- upon which the entire institution of segregation was based– had been ruled unconstitutional.” (Lewis 54). Lewis attempted to demonstrate that real change was beginning to occur by quoting this event and comparing it to his life. By sharing this

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