MLK Day: John Lewis and Elijah Cummings

On this Day of National Service which honors Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. it seems appropriate to also look at newer titles about and by two political icons for the United States and the Civil Rights movement. 

HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON by Jon Meacham is subtitled “John Lewis and the Power of Hope.” Meecham, Pulitzer Prize–winning biographer/historian and author of  numerous texts including The Soul of America and Songs of America, delivers a warm and respectful description of the life and many contributions of John Lewis and his “good trouble.” Meecham writes, “This is not a full-scale biography. It is, rather, an appreciative account of the major moments of Lewis’s life in the movement, of the theological understanding he brought to the struggle, and of the utility he brought to that vision.” Meecham describes Lewis’ family (his great-grandfather, alive until Lewis was seven, was born a slave), his early life, and the importance of faith as well as Lewis’ involvement in the Civil Rights movement. Chapters deal with The Freedom Riders and The Bloody Sunday March across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Interspersed throughout are numerous images of individuals involved in the struggle and of key events, including newspaper coverage. Lewis himself crafted a moving afterword which calls to mind his final public words from the essay, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” published in the New York Times. There he wrote, “Emmett Till was my George Floyd” and “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part ….”  HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal.   

WE'RE BETTER THAN THIS written by Elijah Cummings with James Dale describes the “Fight for the Future of Our Democracy.” Cummings, a Congressman and legislative force for over twenty years, was the first African American lawmaker to be honored with lying in state at the nation's Capitol. This memoir was published posthumously and begins by describing Cummings’ early interactions with the President in 2017 and gradual dawning as to the scale of lies to the country and the world. The book is filled with details of conversations at high levels and with personal musings like “I am seeking to do the right thing at a time when doing the wrong thing is verging on becoming the norm.” At times, the book has the cadence and sense of a sermon, sharing words of wisdom like “you must act better than the other person” from Cummings' 85-year-old mother. Another example for times of misfortune is “Don’t ask why this happened to me. Ask why this happened for me.” Dale describes the structure of the book as “a quilted interweaving of the formative moments of the Congressman’s past;” he further says Cummings “wanted to leave a story for young people, especially disadvantaged young people, to show them what is possible.” Cummings certainly invites them to “turn the pain into passion and the passion into purpose” and to reflect on the same questions with which he struggled, “Who am I? What drives me? Where do I get my resolve?” WE'RE BETTER THAN THIS received a starred review from Library Journal.