Chap­ter Twen­ty-Five, titled “Rock Star,” empha­sizes trans­for­ma­tion in Amer­i­ca post-Oba­ma’s inau­gu­ra­tion through a poignant account of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between race and his­to­ry. Fol­low­ing Barack Oba­ma’s elec­tion as the first Black pres­i­dent, a piece by jour­nal­ist Andrew Dys sparked a pro­found change in Elwin Wil­son, a for­mer Klans­man who had once assault­ed civ­il rights pro­test­ers, includ­ing notable fig­ures Albert Bigelow and John Lewis. Wil­son rec­og­nized his past errors after wit­ness­ing the uni­ty dur­ing the inau­gu­ra­tion and pub­licly sought for­give­ness, assert­ing, “I need to tell peo­ple I’m sor­ry.”

Lewis gra­cious­ly accept­ed Wilson’s apol­o­gy, deem­ing it an act of courage and grace that show­cased the progress soci­ety had made in over­com­ing hatred. Wilson’s sto­ry of regret and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion res­onat­ed, sym­bol­iz­ing hope for a more tol­er­ant Amer­i­ca. His emo­tion­al jour­ney cul­mi­nat­ed in a his­toric meet­ing with Lewis, where they hugged and exchanged words of for­give­ness. Lewis has been approached for sim­i­lar rec­on­cil­ia­to­ry ges­tures from oth­er racists over the years; he embod­ied a com­pas­sion­ate accep­tance of their trans­for­ma­tions.

Despite the hope sym­bol­ized by Oba­ma’s pres­i­den­cy and Wilson’s sto­ry, Lewis’s expe­ri­ences reflect the less overt racism that he encoun­tered as an esteemed con­gress­man. Inci­dents of uncon­scious bias­es con­trast­ed with the overt racism he had bat­tled in the past, demon­strat­ing a trou­bling dual­i­ty in soci­etal atti­tudes.

The chap­ter recounts the tumul­tuous atmos­phere sur­round­ing the Afford­able Care Act’s pas­sage, reveal­ing the resur­gence of overt racial hos­til­i­ty amidst polit­i­cal dis­sent. Lewis faced this ugli­ness first­hand, not­ing that the vit­ri­ol he expe­ri­enced brought back mem­o­ries of the 1960s. His dig­ni­fied response to harass­ment fur­ther exem­pli­fied his endur­ing com­mit­ment to non­vi­o­lence and moral lead­er­ship.

As the chap­ter pro­gress­es, it touch­es on Lewis’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Occu­py Wall Street move­ment, echo­ing the con­tin­ued strug­gle for eco­nom­ic equal­i­ty in Amer­i­ca. As Lil­lian, his wife, bat­tled health issues, Lewis’s resilience as both a politi­cian and a hus­band shone through. Upon her pass­ing, Lewis found com­fort amid per­son­al loss, ulti­mate­ly cement­ing his lega­cy through activism and lit­er­ary con­tri­bu­tions that inspired future gen­er­a­tions to con­tin­ue the civ­il rights strug­gle.

Ulti­mate­ly, this chap­ter not only high­lights Lewis’s per­son­al jour­ney but also under­scores a broad­er nar­ra­tive of strug­gle, growth, and rec­on­cil­i­a­tion in Amer­i­can soci­ety against the back­drop of ongo­ing racial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges.