In Chap­ter Thir­teen, titled “Lost in New York,” the nar­ra­tive explores the tumul­tuous peri­od with­in the Stu­dent Non­vi­o­lent Coor­di­nat­ing Com­mit­tee (SNCC) as Stoke­ly Carmichael’s rise to lead­er­ship cre­ates a divide in the civ­il rights move­ment. Carmichael cham­pi­oned Black pride and self-reliance but trig­gered back­lash from pre­dom­i­nant­ly white donors and allies. Let­ters of dis­ap­point­ment flood­ed into the SNCC Atlanta office, crit­i­ciz­ing Carmichael’s rhetoric, which var­ied from polite dis­ap­proval to out­right racism. Despite his efforts to clar­i­fy his inten­tions, Carmichael often exac­er­bat­ed ten­sions with incen­di­ary state­ments link­ing Black Pow­er to a rad­i­cal dis­man­tling of West­ern civ­i­liza­tion, prompt­ing a depar­ture of key SNCC fig­ures, includ­ing Lewis, who lament­ed the shift towards a more mil­i­tant approach.

As press cov­er­age paint­ed Carmichael’s doc­trine in a neg­a­tive light, the orga­ni­za­tion expe­ri­enced a sig­nif­i­cant loss of per­son­nel. Fol­low­ing a riot incit­ed by Carmichael in the wake of police vio­lence against Black cit­i­zens, SNC­C’s rep­u­ta­tion suf­fered fur­ther, lead­ing to fund short­ages and inter­nal dis­cord. Lewis expressed con­cern about the move­men­t’s shift from its peace­ful roots, link­ing it to a ris­ing trend of extrem­ism. As ten­sions grew, Lewis was per­ceived as dis­con­nect­ed from the new direc­tion, which strayed from the prin­ci­ples he cher­ished.

Tran­si­tion­ing to life in New York, Lewis took a posi­tion under the Mar­shall Field Foun­da­tion, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant increase in salary while nav­i­gat­ing feel­ings of iso­la­tion in a bustling city. He sought to main­tain a broad­er vision of civ­il rights, empha­siz­ing that the move­ment should tran­scend mere­ly address­ing “Negro’s rights.” While secur­ing his new job, he also pur­sued his edu­ca­tion, striv­ing to com­plete his degree from Fisk Uni­ver­si­ty, reflect­ing on the move­men­t’s rela­tion­ship with orga­nized reli­gion and its role in fos­ter­ing civ­il rights activism.

While Lewis adjust­ed to his new life, he faced pro­found lone­li­ness despite some con­nec­tions in the city. He took solace in rem­i­nisc­ing with for­mer col­leagues and engag­ing in con­ver­sa­tions about the civ­il rights move­men­t’s tra­jec­to­ry. Nev­er­the­less, the lin­ger­ing dis­ar­ray with­in SNCC weighed heav­i­ly on him as ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences grew, lead­ing to a notable schism regard­ing its strate­gies, which Lewis regard­ed with dis­ap­point­ment. His expe­ri­ences under­scored a trans­for­ma­tive year marked by both pro­fes­sion­al growth and per­son­al intro­spec­tion amid the evolv­ing land­scape of activism .