After graduating in 1957 from a segregated high school in rural Alabama, John Lewis moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he graduated from American Baptist Theological Seminary in 1961 and was ordained as a Baptist minister. Two years later, he earned a BA in Religion and Philosophy from Fisk University.
Lewis’s plans of becoming a Baptist minister were derailed, however, by his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in Nashville. But his religious studies certainly didn’t go to waste. Discussing the religious, ethical and tactical basis of nonviolent civil disobedience with fellow students Jim Lawson, Diane Nash, James Bevel, Bernard Lafayette, and later-to-become DC’s Mayor Marion Barry, grounded Lewis’s activism in his Christian faith and love.
Rev. James Lawson trained students from Nashville’s four Black colleges in the philosophy and tactics of nonviolent direct-action. Soon, Lewis was among nearly 500 students waging nonviolent sit-ins at segregated lunch counters and filling the jails of Nashville with their freedom songs. Sometimes, they would simply be sitting quietly with their books, doing their homework, when a segregationist would come from behind and hit them, spit on them, pour ketchup on them, or grind out a cigarette on them. Even when met with violence, the students’ commitment to nonviolence never wavered.
Lewis recalled, “When I look back on that particular period in Nashville, the discipline, the dedication and the commitment to nonviolence was unbelievable.”
Shortly after the sit-ins started, the students were warned that if they continued, the backlash could become increasingly violent. Despite the warnings, they remained committed. Although afraid, they felt they “had to bear witness.” Lewis distributed “dos and don’ts”: sit up straight; don’t look back; if someone hits you, smile, etc. At the end, he later recalled, the handout “said something like, ‘Remember the teachings of Jesus Christ, Ghandi and Martin Luther King: May God be with you.’“
The Nashville sit-ins Lewis helped organize and participated in took place from February 13 to May 10, 1960, when lunch counters in downtown Nashville were finally desegregated. Although an earlier sit-in took place in Greensboro, North Carolina, on February 1, 1960, it was the Nashville students who gave impetus to the concept of nonviolent direct action and became leaders in the Civil Rights Movement.
Lewis and the other activists felt like what they were doing was in keeping with the Christian faith. “Something just sort of came over us and consumed us. And we started singing ‘We Shall Overcome’,” which became a key anthem in the Civil Rights Movement.
In this video, John Lewis reflects on the students’ training in and commitment to nonviolent direct-action, the risks they were willing to take, and what they endured for the betterment of society:
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