Chap­ter 10: Africa takes read­ers on a trans­for­ma­tive jour­ney along­side John Lewis as he embarks on a life-chang­ing trip to Africa in the mid-1960s. This chap­ter begins with a per­son­al let­ter from his moth­er, Willie Mae Lewis, to his broth­er Robert, which pro­vides updates on fam­i­ly mat­ters, includ­ing their father’s recov­ery and the activ­i­ties of his sib­lings. She express­es con­cern about Robert’s deci­sion to trav­el to Africa, cit­ing the dis­tance and the poten­tial risks. How­ev­er, Robert was deter­mined to under­stand his her­itage and was inspired by the con­nec­tions he had made with African stu­dents dur­ing his time in Nashville and High­lander. His inter­est in explor­ing Africa’s influ­ence on the civ­il rights move­ment, com­bined with the advice from Bayard Rustin, led him to see the trip as a chance to expand his under­stand­ing of race, pol­i­tics, and social jus­tice on a glob­al scale. Rustin encour­aged Robert to approach the jour­ney with an open mind and secure patrons to make the trip a suc­cess, which led to Har­ry Bela­fonte step­ping in to pro­vide finan­cial sup­port for the trip to Guinea, where they would meet with key fig­ures in the Guinean inde­pen­dence move­ment, includ­ing Pres­i­dent Sék­ou Touré.

On Sep­tem­ber 10, Lewis set out from Atlanta, filled with a mix of excite­ment and trep­i­da­tion about the jour­ney ahead. How­ev­er, the excite­ment was damp­ened when they encoun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties at JFK air­port due to over­book­ing on their flight. Ruby Doris Smith Robin­son, unde­terred by this obsta­cle, led the group in a peace­ful sit-in on the jet­way, ensur­ing that they would be able to board the plane and begin their jour­ney. It was Lewis’s first expe­ri­ence fly­ing, and while it was exhil­a­rat­ing, it was also anx­i­ety-induc­ing for him. Upon their arrival in Sene­gal, the group received a warm wel­come and was struck by the sight of Black pro­fes­sion­als in roles that were rare to see in Amer­i­ca at the time. This moment marked a turn­ing point in Lewis’s under­stand­ing of racial iden­ti­ty, as it offered a glimpse into a soci­ety where African Amer­i­cans could thrive in pro­fes­sion­al set­tings that were still large­ly out of reach back home. The trip con­tin­ued to Guinea, where they stayed at Vil­la Sily and enjoyed lav­ish meals and cul­tur­al fes­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, amid the cel­e­bra­tion, Lewis was also deeply engaged in mean­ing­ful con­ver­sa­tions with local activists, min­is­ters, and polit­i­cal fig­ures, gain­ing insights into Guinea’s one-par­ty polit­i­cal sys­tem and the strug­gles it faced as it sought inde­pen­dence. This expe­ri­ence offered him a new per­spec­tive on activism, deep­en­ing his com­mit­ment to the fight for civ­il rights.

As Lewis and the group con­tin­ued their jour­ney, they vis­it­ed Liberia and Ghana, where the cul­tur­al dif­fer­ences between the African nations and the Unit­ed States became more evi­dent. Lewis began to reflect on the shared aspi­ra­tions for free­dom and equal­i­ty that unit­ed African Amer­i­cans with African nations, while also grap­pling with the com­plex­i­ties of his iden­ti­ty as an African Amer­i­can in a land that was both famil­iar and for­eign. The trip cul­mi­nat­ed in Zam­bia, where the group wit­nessed the jubi­lant cel­e­bra­tions of Zambia’s inde­pen­dence, which filled them with hope and inspi­ra­tion. How­ev­er, despite the fes­tive atmos­phere, Lewis felt dis­con­nect­ed from the local cul­ture, a sense of dis­place­ment that rein­forced the chal­lenges of nav­i­gat­ing one’s iden­ti­ty as an African Amer­i­can in a glob­al con­text. Upon his return to the Unit­ed States, Lewis felt a renewed sense of pur­pose, deter­mined to fos­ter inter­na­tion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty with­in the civ­il rights move­ment. His time in Africa inspired him to con­tin­ue his work not only with­in the con­fines of the Amer­i­can civ­il rights strug­gle but also with an aware­ness of the glob­al dimen­sions of race and injus­tice. How­ev­er, his return to the U.S. was marred by the real­iza­tion that SNCC, the orga­ni­za­tion he had once worked so tire­less­ly for, was fac­ing inter­nal divi­sions and chal­lenges in its direc­tion. The grow­ing ide­o­log­i­cal rifts and lead­er­ship strug­gles with­in the orga­ni­za­tion led Lewis to recon­sid­er his place with­in it, ulti­mate­ly chal­leng­ing him to define his role in the ongo­ing fight for racial jus­tice. This chap­ter under­scores the impor­tance of glob­al per­spec­tives in shap­ing the civ­il rights move­ment and high­lights Lewis’s evolv­ing under­stand­ing of activism, iden­ti­ty, and sol­i­dar­i­ty in the pur­suit of jus­tice.