Chap­ter 13: Lost in New York delves deeply into a sig­nif­i­cant turn­ing point in John Lewis’s life, dur­ing a time when the civ­il rights move­ment faced pro­found inter­nal divi­sions. The rise of Stoke­ly Carmichael with­in the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC) cre­at­ed a sharp divide, as his focus on Black Pow­er and self-reliance sharply con­trast­ed with the ear­li­er, more inclu­sive prin­ci­ples of non­vi­o­lent resis­tance. His speech­es and actions, which cel­e­brat­ed Black pride and auton­o­my, sparked back­lash, espe­cial­ly from white donors and allies who had sup­port­ed SNCC. The orga­ni­za­tion received a flood of crit­i­cism, with some let­ters express­ing dis­ap­point­ment and oth­ers veer­ing into out­right racism. Despite Carmichael’s attempts to clar­i­fy his posi­tion, the ten­sions only deep­ened, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he linked Black Pow­er to a rad­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion. This alien­at­ed a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of the SNCC’s orig­i­nal lead­er­ship, includ­ing John Lewis, who felt increas­ing­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the direc­tion the move­ment was tak­ing.

As the rift grew, SNCC expe­ri­enced the loss of sev­er­al key fig­ures who were dis­il­lu­sioned by the organization’s new mil­i­tant approach. Media cov­er­age fur­ther soured pub­lic per­cep­tion of the group, focus­ing on Carmichael’s provoca­tive state­ments and the riots sparked by police vio­lence against Black cit­i­zens. The vio­lence that fol­lowed fur­ther tar­nished SNCC’s rep­u­ta­tion and led to decreased fund­ing. This peri­od marked a crit­i­cal moment of self-reflec­tion for Lewis, who had always believed in non­vi­o­lence as the cor­ner­stone of civ­il rights activism. As the move­ment moved towards more rad­i­cal meth­ods, he strug­gled to align him­self with a new direc­tion that con­tra­dict­ed his deeply held prin­ci­ples of peace­ful protest and uni­ty. His con­cerns grew as the focus shift­ed from a col­lec­tive strug­gle for jus­tice to an increas­ing­ly divi­sive, indi­vid­u­al­is­tic stance that seemed to ignore the broad­er uni­ty that had once unit­ed the civ­il rights com­mu­ni­ty.

Amidst the unrav­el­ing of SNCC, Lewis found him­self turn­ing towards a new chap­ter in his life. Mov­ing to New York in the ear­ly 1970s, he began work­ing with the Mar­shall Field Foun­da­tion, which brought finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty and allowed him to step away from the tur­moil of the civ­il rights move­ment at that time. While the new job offered a com­fort­able salary, it didn’t come with­out its own emo­tion­al chal­lenges. Lewis found him­self expe­ri­enc­ing a deep sense of lone­li­ness in the sprawl­ing city, far removed from the tight-knit rela­tion­ships he had formed in the South dur­ing his years of activism. Even though he had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage in mean­ing­ful work and was sur­round­ed by the vibran­cy of New York, he still reflect­ed on his past involve­ment with SNCC and the tra­jec­to­ry of the civ­il rights move­ment. He strug­gled with feel­ings of alien­ation, as the ide­o­log­i­cal shifts with­in the move­ment weighed heav­i­ly on him, espe­cial­ly as the tra­di­tion­al routes of activism seemed to be crum­bling. Yet, through this time of intro­spec­tion, he reaf­firmed his belief in the pow­er of grass­roots work and the impor­tance of con­tin­u­ing the fight for jus­tice, even if the meth­ods and strate­gies were chang­ing.

Dur­ing this peri­od, Lewis also focused on com­plet­ing his degree from Fisk Uni­ver­si­ty, show­ing his ded­i­ca­tion to per­son­al growth and edu­ca­tion despite the chal­lenges he faced. He also con­tin­ued to reflect on the rela­tion­ship between orga­nized reli­gion and civ­il rights activism, con­sid­er­ing the spir­i­tu­al dimen­sions that had always guid­ed his efforts. His time in New York became one of self-dis­cov­ery, as he not only grap­pled with his grow­ing dis­il­lu­sion­ment but also start­ed to con­sid­er his next steps in the move­ment. Despite the strug­gles, he remained com­mit­ted to his vision of a civ­il rights move­ment that was root­ed in uni­ty and inclu­sive­ness, a stark con­trast to the divi­sive­ness that had begun to take hold with­in SNCC. In the end, this peri­od of reflec­tion and per­son­al growth laid the ground­work for his return to the polit­i­cal stage, where his ded­i­ca­tion to jus­tice would con­tin­ue to define his lega­cy.