Chap­ter 17: ACTION takes the read­er through a piv­otal chap­ter in John Lewis’s life, where he tran­si­tions into a new role after the defeat of his con­gres­sion­al bid. In April, an offer from Pres­i­dent Jim­my Carter changes the course of his jour­ney. Carter, known for his com­plex blend of South­ern pop­ulism and tech­ni­cal exper­tise, appoint­ed peo­ple from diverse back­grounds to serve in his admin­is­tra­tion. Sam Brown, a notable advo­cate for anti-war efforts, was tasked with lead­ing ACTION, a new umbrel­la agency that com­bined sev­er­al vol­un­teer pro­grams. After rec­og­niz­ing the poten­tial of John Lewis fol­low­ing his unsuc­cess­ful con­gres­sion­al run, Brown and his team rec­om­mend­ed Lewis for the posi­tion of asso­ciate direc­tor for domes­tic oper­a­tions, offer­ing him an oppor­tu­ni­ty that would shape his future.

Ini­tial­ly, Lewis con­tem­plat­ed tak­ing a dif­fer­ent path, such as writ­ing a mem­oir or sim­ply enjoy­ing some time fish­ing. How­ev­er, the prospect of work­ing with ACTION was excit­ing, offer­ing him not only a sub­stan­tial salary but also the chance to con­tin­ue his life­long mis­sion. His goal had always been to fos­ter com­mu­ni­ty build­ing based on the ideals of love and peace. By accept­ing the posi­tion, he was giv­en a plat­form to fur­ther those ideals on a nation­al stage. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, just after his accep­tance, Lewis expe­ri­enced pro­found per­son­al loss with the death of his father, Eddie Lewis. This marked a somber moment in his life, with his father’s funer­al in Pike Coun­ty draw­ing a sig­nif­i­cant crowd of mourn­ers. Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Lewis hon­ored his father with a deeply mov­ing eulo­gy.

By July, the Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ings for his new role pro­ceed­ed smooth­ly, with Lewis con­fi­dent­ly han­dling ques­tions from the com­mit­tee. He was well-pre­pared, which became appar­ent as he nav­i­gat­ed the process with ease. Even Georgia’s own sen­a­tor, Her­man Tal­madge, who had once been a staunch seg­re­ga­tion­ist, praised him as “emi­nent­ly qual­i­fied.” Dur­ing the hear­ings, Lewis out­lined his vision for ACTION, empha­siz­ing its poten­tial to repli­cate his grass­roots work on a much larg­er scale. His aim was to bring com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment and engage­ment into the nation­al dia­logue, mak­ing it cen­tral to the agen­cy’s oper­a­tions. By August, as he began tran­si­tion­ing into the role, Lewis noticed how ACTION’s envi­ron­ment car­ried a youth­ful, casu­al ener­gy rem­i­nis­cent of the 1960s, a time that had shaped much of his own activism.

Despite set­tling into office life and man­ag­ing a new home in a chal­leng­ing neigh­bor­hood, the polit­i­cal land­scape was far from easy. His wife, Lil­lian, and their son, John-Miles, remained in Atlanta as Lewis worked to fos­ter a close-knit, fam­i­ly-like atmos­phere with­in his staff. Though the work was ful­fill­ing, con­tro­ver­sies began to mount. The orga­ni­za­tion faced con­stant crit­i­cism from Repub­li­can fig­ures who claimed ACTION was too rad­i­cal and aligned with the ideas of the War on Pover­ty era. These attacks remind­ed Lewis of the scruti­ny he faced dur­ing his time with the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC). The ten­sion only grew as the agen­cy’s direc­tion and fund­ing came under fire, putting immense pres­sure on Lewis.

Things wors­ened when inter­nal dis­putes emerged with­in the Peace Corps, with some ques­tion­ing whether tra­di­tion­al ser­vice roles were at odds with activism. Lewis, ever com­pas­sion­ate, sought to medi­ate these con­flicts, but his involve­ment only added to the mount­ing ide­o­log­i­cal divides. His lead­er­ship style—patient, com­pas­sion­ate, and ground­ed in his moral convictions—won him many admir­ers with­in the agency. How­ev­er, these chal­lenges were exac­er­bat­ed by the polit­i­cal ten­sions of the time, espe­cial­ly with a GOP that con­tin­ued to attack his every move. As Lewis wres­tled with these issues, he faced deep per­son­al and polit­i­cal ques­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly about return­ing to Geor­gia, where his sense of pur­pose had orig­i­nal­ly been shaped.

By the end of the chap­ter, Lewis’s expe­ri­ence with ACTION was a blend of ful­fill­ing work and nav­i­gat­ing polit­i­cal strife. His time with the agency was marked not only by his endur­ing ded­i­ca­tion to civ­il rights and com­mu­ni­ty work but also by the increas­ing frus­tra­tion with polit­i­cal bat­tles. Despite the chal­lenges, he con­tin­ued to make sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to the field, dri­ven by the lessons learned from his past and the hope of shap­ing a bet­ter future. His tenure in ACTION, with all its dif­fi­cul­ties and tri­umphs, would prove to be a for­ma­tive chap­ter in his life­long fight for jus­tice and equal­i­ty.