In Chap­ter Eigh­teen titled “Atlanta,” John Lewis returned to Atlanta in 1980, dri­ven by his desire to con­tin­ue his pub­lic ser­vice. Although he con­tem­plat­ed run­ning for may­or, he rec­og­nized his lim­i­ta­tions and set his sights on the city coun­cil elec­tions the fol­low­ing year. Mean­while, he took on the role of direc­tor of com­mu­ni­ty affairs for the Nation­al Con­sumer Coop­er­a­tive Bank, focus­ing on eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment in poor neigh­bor­hoods. How­ev­er, the work did­n’t ful­fill him, par­tic­u­lar­ly when he had to over­see loan ter­mi­na­tions, lead­ing to com­mu­ni­ty back­lash.

By March 1981, as city coun­cil spec­u­la­tion inten­si­fied, Lewis declared his can­di­da­cy for an at-large seat, chal­leng­ing incum­bent Jack Sum­mers. His rig­or­ous cam­paign strat­e­gy involved vis­it­ing neigh­bor­hoods of var­ied socioe­co­nom­ic back­grounds, allow­ing him to adopt a crit­i­cal per­spec­tive on the city’s gov­er­nance. His ear­li­er opti­mism about Atlanta’s inte­gra­tion fad­ed as he addressed ongo­ing eco­nom­ic hard­ships and sig­nif­i­cant social issues, includ­ing crime and seg­re­ga­tion. Lewis empha­sized the inter­con­nect­ed­ness of urban chal­lenges, advo­cat­ing for ini­tia­tives aimed at sup­port­ing mar­gin­al­ized com­mu­ni­ties.

Dur­ing his cam­paign, he char­ac­ter­ized him­self as “a voice for the voice­less,” endors­ing typ­i­cal lib­er­al poli­cies while also acknowl­edg­ing prob­lems with­in impov­er­ished Black com­mu­ni­ties. He voiced con­cerns over youth engag­ing in crime and crit­i­cized city gov­er­nance prac­tices, espe­cial­ly regard­ing ethics and con­flicts of inter­est among coun­cil mem­bers. His com­mit­ment to eth­i­cal gov­er­nance antag­o­nized some col­leagues, par­tic­u­lar­ly coun­cil chair­man Mar­vin Arring­ton.

Lewis’s oppo­si­tion to the pres­i­den­tial park­way project spear­head­ed by Jim­my Carter became a sig­nif­i­cant con­tro­ver­sy. Con­cerned about the plan’s impact on his­toric neigh­bor­hoods, Lewis resist­ed pres­sure from peers, launched impas­sioned cam­paigns against the devel­op­ment, and cul­ti­vat­ed alliances with activists. His advo­ca­cy under­scored a broad­er fight against envi­ron­men­tal racism, artic­u­lat­ing the risks faced by low­er-income and minor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties.

Despite los­ing the ini­tial coun­cil vote on the park­way, Lewis’s activism gal­va­nized com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, lead­ing to sus­tained oppo­si­tion that would even­tu­al­ly alter the road­way’s devel­op­ment. In a polit­i­cal­ly charged envi­ron­ment, Lewis nav­i­gat­ed rela­tion­ships, regret­tably some­times lead­ing to rival­ries, par­tic­u­lar­ly with Julian Bond, as both ambit­ed posi­tions of pow­er in Geor­gia’s polit­i­cal land­scape. This chap­ter encap­su­lates Lewis’s growth and con­flict as he tran­si­tioned from civ­il rights activist to an influ­en­tial polit­i­cal fig­ure in Atlanta.