In Chap­ter One, titled “The Boy from Troy,” the nar­ra­tive cen­ters on John Lewis’s ear­ly life, detail­ing his unique child­hood in Pike Coun­ty, Alaba­ma. Born on Feb­ru­ary 21, 1940, John was dis­tin­guished among his sib­lings for his love of read­ing and an affin­i­ty for edu­ca­tion, as reflect­ed in his father’s com­ments about him being a “pecu­liar boy.” His fam­i­ly, notably his father, Eddie Lewis, and his sis­ter, Ethel Mae, empha­sized his pas­sion for books, includ­ing works by Robert Louis Steven­son and biogra­phies of notable African Amer­i­cans, with Book­er T. Wash­ing­ton’s “Up from Slav­ery” becom­ing a favorite.

The chap­ter also explores John’s back­ground, trac­ing his fam­i­ly lin­eage back to enslaved ances­tors. His great-great-grand­par­ents, Tobias and Eliz­a­beth Carter, were grant­ed a mod­est plot of land after the Civ­il War, high­light­ing a com­plex his­to­ry of eman­ci­pa­tion and land own­er­ship. While the Carters ini­tial­ly pros­pered, by the time John was born, his par­ents were strug­gling as ten­ant farm­ers for a white landown­er, Josh Copeland.

John’s domes­tic life was marked by pover­ty and the stark real­i­ties of sur­vival, reflect­ing the hard­ships faced by many Black fam­i­lies in the South. The Lewis house­hold lacked mod­ern ameni­ties, com­pelling them to adapt cre­ative­ly to their cir­cum­stances, such as boil­ing water for baths and using out­door toi­lets. Despite these chal­lenges, Eddie pri­or­i­tized pro­vid­ing his fam­i­ly with a sense of dig­ni­ty, empha­siz­ing the impor­tance of food and safe­ty amidst the threats of vio­lence from groups like the Ku Klux Klan.

As John nav­i­gat­ed his child­hood, he encoun­tered the deep-root­ed seg­re­ga­tion and racism of the Jim Crow South, which pro­found­ly shaped his world­view and activism. The chap­ter presents poignant vignettes of his expe­ri­ences, includ­ing lim­it­ed access to edu­ca­tion and pub­lic facil­i­ties due to racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. These for­ma­tive expe­ri­ences fueled his grow­ing aware­ness of social injus­tice and solid­i­fied his resolve to pur­sue a life devot­ed to civ­il rights advo­ca­cy.

John’s reli­gious upbring­ing, heav­i­ly influ­enced by his moth­er, Willie Mae, fos­tered a sense of hope and moral con­vic­tion in him. His ear­ly ambi­tions cen­tered on becom­ing a min­is­ter, a goal he pur­sued pas­sion­ate­ly, preach­ing in local church­es and engag­ing in com­mu­ni­ty activ­i­ties. The chap­ter cul­mi­nates with John’s aspi­ra­tions for high­er edu­ca­tion, moti­vat­ed by the desire to effect change for his com­mu­ni­ty, lead­ing him to seek admis­sion to a sem­i­nary school. This desire for edu­ca­tion and equal­i­ty became defin­ing themes in his life, lay­ing the ground­work for his future activism .