Fighting with Love: The Legacy of John Lewis

Employing quotations from their book’s subject, married collaborators the Cline-Ransomes chart the life of civil rights activist and politician John Lewis (1940–2020) from his Alabama childhood, in which, before he “was old enough to read the word ‘love’ in his Bible, he could feel it all around him.” Beginning with the family’s “sun-beaten, sweat-soaked, hunchbacked farming” labors, the creators offer a thoroughly contextualized account of the racial segregation Lewis experienced, his work in nonviolent resistance at the Nashville chapter of the NAACP, his involvement with the Freedom Riders, and his famously standing “for everyone who needed someone to stand up for what was right” on Selma, Ala.’s Edmund Pettus Bridge. Via pencil sketched on patterned paper, collage-style visuals contribute dimension to this well-researched love letter to a significant figure who believed that “nonviolence is love in action.” Back matter includes an author’s note and list of quote sources. Ages 4–8. (Jan.)