**Chap­ter Sev­en­teen Sum­ma­ry: ACTION**

In April, the job offer for John Lewis came, mark­ing a piv­otal moment post his con­gres­sion­al bid loss. Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter, a com­plex fig­ure bal­anc­ing South­ern pop­ulism and tech­noc­ra­cy, appoint­ed numer­ous indi­vid­u­als from diverse back­grounds, includ­ing lib­er­als and activists. Sam Brown, an advo­cate for anti-war efforts, was tasked with lead­ing ACTION, an umbrel­la agency join­ing var­i­ous vol­un­teer pro­grams. Rec­og­niz­ing Lewis’s lost con­gres­sion­al bid, Brown and his team sug­gest­ed him as the asso­ciate direc­tor for domes­tic oper­a­tions.

Lewis con­tem­plat­ed options like writ­ing a mem­oir or fish­ing, but the ACTION posi­tion excit­ed him, promis­ing a sub­stan­tial salary and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to ful­fill his life­long mis­sion of com­mu­ni­ty build­ing based on love and peace, lead­ing to his accep­tance of the posi­tion.

Short­ly after his accep­tance, tragedy struck as Eddie Lewis, John’s father, passed away. This pro­found loss was marked by a sig­nif­i­cant turnout for his funer­al in Pike Coun­ty, with John hon­or­ing him in a heart­felt eulo­gy.

By July, Lewis’s Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings pro­ceed­ed smooth­ly. He adept­ly han­dled queries, dis­play­ing famil­iar­i­ty with the process. Geor­gia sen­a­tor Her­man Tal­madge, once a seg­re­ga­tion­ist, referred to him as “emi­nent­ly qual­i­fied.” Lewis expressed his vision for ACTION to repli­cate his grass­roots work on a nation­al scale, empha­siz­ing engage­ment and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment.

Tran­si­tion­ing into his role by August, Lewis appre­ci­at­ed ACTION’s unique ambiance rem­i­nis­cent of the 1960s, char­ac­ter­ized by a youth­ful, casu­al ener­gy. He quick­ly set­tled into office life, man­ag­ing a new home in a chal­leng­ing neigh­bor­hood, while Lil­lian and their son, John-Miles, remained in Atlanta. Lewis fos­tered a close-knit fam­i­ly atmos­phere among his staff, pri­or­i­tiz­ing inspi­ra­tion over admin­is­tra­tion.

Despite the pos­i­tive aspects, con­tro­ver­sies plagued Lewis’s term. Crit­i­cism came from Repub­li­can fig­ures tar­get­ing ACTION for its per­ceived rad­i­cal affil­i­a­tions, echo­ing sen­ti­ments from the War on Pover­ty era. Lewis con­front­ed relent­less scruti­ny regard­ing fund­ing and pro­gram direc­tion, liken­ing it to expe­ri­ences from his time with SNCC.

Ten­sions height­ened when Lewis inter­vened in inter­nal dis­putes, notably with­in the Peace Corps, high­light­ing ide­o­log­i­cal divides regard­ing activism ver­sus tra­di­tion­al ser­vice roles. His com­pas­sion­ate approach to these con­tro­ver­sies endeared him to col­leagues, albeit amidst ris­ing polit­i­cal strife.

The dynam­ics with­in Con­gress were exhaust­ing, with per­sis­tent GOP attacks drain­ing Lewis’s spir­it. As he nav­i­gat­ed these chal­lenges, he faced intro­spec­tion about return­ing to Geor­gia. Lewis’s sense of dis­con­tent grew, over­lap­ping with dis­ap­point­ments in Carter’s admin­is­tra­tion amid socio-polit­i­cal strug­gles.

In sum­ma­ry, the time in ACTION for Lewis was a blend of ful­fill­ing mis­sion-dri­ven work and nav­i­gat­ing the tur­bu­lent waters of pol­i­tics, com­bined with deeply per­son­al expe­ri­ences that shaped his con­tin­u­ing lega­cy in civ­il rights advo­ca­cy.