In Chap­ter Six, titled “Open City,” the nar­ra­tive cen­ters on John Lewis and the Civ­il Rights Move­ment dur­ing the sum­mer of 1961, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Nashville. After the Free­dom Rid­ers left Parch­man Pen­i­ten­tiary, Lewis gained minor celebri­ty sta­tus, notably speak­ing at the “Free­dom Jubilee” in Pitts­burgh, where he was hon­ored for his brav­ery, although he humbly remarked, “I feel as if I have done noth­ing.” This chap­ter high­lights the dynam­ic activ­i­ties sur­round­ing the Nashville move­ment, which became a hub for stu­dent con­fer­ences and protests, involv­ing par­tic­i­pants from across the Unit­ed States and over­seas.

The chap­ter details a sym­po­sium held at Fisk Uni­ver­si­ty, which gath­ered over a hun­dred par­tic­i­pants eager to dis­cuss plans and strate­gies for civ­il rights activism. Lewis, still in need of legal guid­ance due to his Mis­sis­sip­pi con­vic­tion, high­lights emerg­ing dif­fer­ences among stu­dents regard­ing tactics—specifically between those favor­ing direct action and those endors­ing vot­er reg­is­tra­tion ini­tia­tives pro­posed by the Kennedy admin­is­tra­tion. These divi­sions cul­mi­nat­ed in a sig­nif­i­cant meet­ing at High­lander Folk School, where Ella Bak­er medi­at­ed a com­pro­mise that led to the estab­lish­ment of two wings with­in the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC): one focused on direct action and the oth­er on vot­er reg­is­tra­tion.

As the sum­mer saw an influx of protests, ten­sions arose between sea­soned activists, like Lewis, and new­com­ers who some­times dis­re­gard­ed non­vi­o­lent prin­ci­ples. A notable flare-up occurred dur­ing a demon­stra­tion against H.G. Hill super­mar­kets, where con­fronta­tions with hos­tile locals led to arrests and high­light­ed the neces­si­ty of adher­ence to non­vi­o­lent strate­gies.

Lewis’s lead­er­ship con­tin­ued as the chap­ter tran­si­tions to the launch of “Oper­a­tion Open City,” tar­get­ing deseg­re­ga­tion and equal hir­ing in Nashville. Despite dwin­dling par­tic­i­pa­tion from peers, he remained com­mit­ted to the cause and led a core group, even­tu­al­ly dubbed the “Hor­ri­ble Sev­en,” in sus­tained protests against seg­re­ga­tion. Their efforts yield­ed mixed results; while some cam­paigns suc­ceed­ed, oth­ers, like the attempt to inte­grate upscale restau­rants, end­ed in fail­ure and arrests.

As sum­mer tran­si­tioned into fall, Lewis’s com­mit­ment remained strong, fac­ing per­son­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al chal­lenges as SNCC began expand­ing its focus beyond Nashville to include rur­al efforts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Mis­sis­sip­pi. The chap­ter ends with Lewis’s ded­i­ca­tion to the move­ment, illus­trat­ing both the tri­umphs and strug­gles that defined this crit­i­cal moment in America’s civ­il rights his­to­ry .