Walking with the Wind (Lewis) - Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion of WALKING WITH THE WIND … then take off on your own:

1. In reading his memoir, how would you piece together, what John Lewis was like as a person? How did the events of his childhood affect his strength and passion to fight for civil rights in the 1960s—especially, as written in his memoir, growing up on the family farm in "a small world, a safe world, filled with family and friends"? In what way did that safe environment propel him to become a leader in the Civil Rights movement? Consider, for instance, his reference to caring for the family's chickens and what ideals that instilled in him.

2. What it was like to live in the Jim Crow South society of the 1940 ad 50s, as recalled to us by Lewis?

3. What role did Lewis's faith play in his life, starting from the time he was a child? How did Martin Luther King Jr.'s sermon on the radio, entitled "Paul's Letter to the American Christians" affect Lewis?

4. What role did Lewis play in galvanizing the nation once Americans learned of the brutality meted out to demonstrators in Montgomery, Alabama?

5. In August, 1963, Lewis gave a speech as head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee at the March on Washington. What did he call for? Did the speech work? Would it have worked today? How did the Black Power movement undermine Lewis's goals?

6. Discuss what happened at the 1964 Democratic National Convention? Talk about how Lyndon Johnson's decision, or compromise, affected John Lewis and the momentum of the civil rights movement.

7. When Martin Luther King was assassinated, what affect did it have on the movement, and on Lewis himself?

8. How is Lewis's memoir relevant today?

9. How much did you know, or understand, about the history of Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement before reading Walking with the Wind? Did John Lewis's memoir expand your knowledge or confirm your ideas of that era in history?

10. Why, in your opinion, has the Civil Rights movement persisted? Or has it persisted? What happened to the momentum of the 60s? Did it stall out? Did it continue? Why, after 50 years, are Black citizens still struggling for equality?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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