John Lewis's Personality In March By Andrew Aydin

John Lewis’s life began like many black children’s lives began in 1940 America. In his book trilogy, March, written by him and co-author Andrew Aydin, and artist Nate Powell, Lewis recalls growing up in Troy, Alabama, surrounded by racism. As his progressed life, his mindset did as well. He went through many life-changing events, but three explicitly led to create his determined character to power through the struggle of the fluctuations in the Civil Rights movement: receiving his first Bible, discovering nonviolent protesting tactics, and his first arrest. All these experiences led to the development of Lewis’s strong and resilient personality.

Lewis’s receiving a Bible as a young boy developed his strength in religion, which further strengthened

Lewis was able to see that it had worked before, and he truly believed it would once again. After Jim Lawson told him about the tactics, Lewis’s mind raced with thoughts, and he states, “His words liberated me. I thought, this is it...this is the way out” (Lewis & Aydin, 1:78). Reading this quote, I understand what John Lewis feels in this moment. For him, it’s a moment of pure inspiration and adrenaline out of sheer hope for the future, like dreaming about something so far away for so long and then realizing the exact solution to make that something not so far away anymore. Lewis knew that these tactics had freed people before, an entire nation, by a small man named Gandhi, and if one man with an inspired thought could do it, an entire culture protesting could do it, too. This influence stayed with him throughout the entirety of the protests, even when it couldn’t with others. It created a stronger base for his developments that started out with his first turning point, receiving his Bible and grasping the idea of forgiveness for progress, which is why he was able to grasp and carry out the idea of nonviolence so well. During the practice sessions with other peaceful protestors, not all could hold out on being so strongly degraded. One member during the practice sessions

His first arrest took place at a mall lunch counter while the peaceful protesters were in the midst of a sit-in. They were arrested simply for not obeying police orders to move out. As Lewis was being arrested, present-day Lewis calls to mind that he had, “...felt free, liberated...like I had crossed over” (Lewis & Aydin, 1:102). I believe that his first arrest broke a barrier in him that made him feel free because he now felt that there was nothing worse that he could do against those who opposed him in defense of his cause. This also made him feel like he had new abilities, abilities to break laws when he felt that they were unjust. He had destroyed his perfect record, and there was no going back. It added to his personality in that he was willing to do whatever was needed regardless of any consequence. Lewis continued the topic of his first arrest in Book Two, where, after the lunch counters had been desegregated, Lewis states, “When my parents found out I’d been arrested and gone to jail, they were devastated...I still saw my family over the summer and on breaks here and there, but Nashville--and the growing student movement--became my home” (Lewis & Aydin, 2:8). The shamefulness Lewis felt when his parents discovered his arrest shifted his personality. While he still saw his parents, he lost a part of himself through being arrested and “failing” his family--he was no longer a son, not in terms of