In May 1965, John Robert Lewis wrote an influ­en­tial essay for the *New York Her­ald Tri­bune*, urg­ing the civ­il rights move­ment to become polit­i­cal­ly focused. He drew on Bayard Rustin’s call for polit­i­cal pow­er to address sys­temic inequal­i­ties regard­ing jobs, edu­ca­tion, and hous­ing. Lewis cit­ed the his­tor­i­cal back­drop of the unful­filled Third Enforce­ment Act and argued that mean­ing­ful change would come only when Black indi­vid­u­als held polit­i­cal office, posit­ing that the con­science of polit­i­cal par­ties must include Black per­spec­tives and strug­gles.

While some mem­bers of the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC) shared his views, they pur­sued polit­i­cal pow­er through var­i­ous ini­tia­tives, such as the vot­er reg­is­tra­tion efforts in Lown­des Coun­ty, Alaba­ma, led by Stoke­ly Carmichael, Bob Mants, and Judy Richard­son. The most high-pro­file effort was Julian Bond’s cam­paign for the Geor­gia leg­is­la­ture, which divid­ed opin­ions with­in SNCC. Lewis sup­port­ed Bond, hop­ing his vic­to­ry would inspire fur­ther Black polit­i­cal engage­ment.

Lewis’s opti­mism was reward­ed when the Sen­ate passed the Vot­ing Rights Act on August 4, 1965, a mile­stone for the move­ment. Lewis attend­ed the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny and had a mem­o­rable meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Lyn­don B. John­son, who empha­sized the neces­si­ty of vot­er reg­is­tra­tion and enforce­ment of the new law. How­ev­er, Lewis was aware that the Act would suc­ceed only through vig­or­ous enforce­ment.

Chal­lenges fol­lowed, as Lewis lat­er faced arrest while protest­ing for Black vot­er reg­is­tra­tion in Geor­gia. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, urban riots erupt­ed in sev­er­al cities, stem­ming from frus­tra­tion over police bru­tal­i­ty and socioe­co­nom­ic dis­par­i­ties. Lewis empathized with the griev­ances of riot­ers but con­demned the vio­lence, advo­cat­ing for orga­nized, peace­ful protest instead.

Dis­cus­sions arose about the direc­tion of the move­ment post-Vot­ing Rights Act, lead­ing to philo­soph­i­cal and tac­ti­cal rifts with­in SNCC. The war in Viet­nam also became a con­tentious issue among activists, with debates on how it inter­sect­ed with the civ­il rights strug­gle. Amidst this tur­bu­lence, Lewis began to con­tem­plate the direc­tion of the move­ment, espe­cial­ly as more mil­i­tant fac­tions gained trac­tion.

As ten­sions mount­ed at the SNCC meet­ing in Kingston Springs, Ten­nessee, Lewis was chal­lenged in his lead­er­ship by Carmichael, who cham­pi­oned a more aggres­sive approach. Fol­low­ing a con­tentious elec­tion, Lewis was shocked to lose his chair­man­ship to Carmichael. The feel­ing of betray­al lin­gered as SNC­C’s focus shift­ed towards a more rad­i­cal stance, diverg­ing from the ideals that had pre­vi­ous­ly unit­ed them.

In the after­math of his oust­ing and the ris­ing influ­ence of Black nation­al­ism, Lewis grap­pled with his future, reflect­ing on his role in a move­ment that was evolv­ing rapid­ly and uncer­tain­ty over his place with­in it.