Run: Book One

Each volume of March ends in triumph. The first volume ends with a successful boycott of downtown Nashville, which prompts the integration of its restaurants. The second volume ends with the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, a climactic moment for the civil rights struggle (although its joy is soon punctured by the nightmarish bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham). The third volume ends with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, which along with the Civil Rights Act provides the legislative cornerstone of the movement. Run, by contrast, ends with disgrace, and something like exile, emphasizing the imposing nature of Lewis’s challenge. Lewis has continued his efforts in The Internationalization of the Civil Rights Movement, staging a demonstration in the South African consulate (the fact that it is his last arrest is significant, given how many times he was arrested over his career).

Even after his ouster as Chairman, he retains the role of director for the International Affairs Commission—he dismisses it as being “put out to pasture” (98), but it does indicate his success at incorporating the movement within broader global trends. Ultimately, Lewis is unable to win the argument over The Promise and Limits of Nonviolence. The election of Lurleen Wallace was a devastating setback, especially after the relative success the LCFO had in mobilizing Black voters. For such a potent symbol of segregation to triumph seemes to negate all their work and indicates that supporting a moderate segregationist for county sheriff against an extreme segregationist is not going to produce any long-term good. At this moment, Carmichael’s argument that “nonviolence is irrelevant…we’re building a force to take power, we’re not a protest movement” resonates with those who are tired of playing by the rules and waiting for concessions from a system that gives with one hand and takes with another (84). Lewis is surprisingly ambivalent about his own ouster. He is deflated and his life’s purpose diminished, but he cannot help to wonder who might be pulling the strings.

To add insult to injury, Carmichael’s parliamentary tactics come off as cheap trickery—for example, using a non-staffer who calls himself “the local people” while badgering a small room into compliance after most other people had left (91). Despite his profound disappointment, Lewis is sensitive to his drawbacks and understands how Carmichael meets the moment. He can see that “there was so much change happening—change in the nation, change in our culture and our society, and certainly change within SNCC” (92). While Lewis’s commitment to nonviolence is moral rather than practical, he understands that he cannot push his moral convictions on the broader movement. He already fought and lost plenty of battles, from the decision to have the LCFO operate outside the Democratic party to the decision to limit (and ultimately eliminate) the role of white staffers. As the movement shifts more toward Black pride than integration, Lewis knows full well that he is not going to win a discussion about “who was ‘Blackest’” given his thoroughly integrationist past and continued loyalty to Martin Luther King, Jr (89).

Carmichael, on the other hand, has the persona to win such a debate, as well as the tactical approach to capture the target audience. He bases his approach on a slogan (Black Power) that was able to capture the imagination of an audience and spur them to action. Lewis’s position that “as an organization, we don’t believe in sloganeering, we believe in programs” is understandable given his role as the leader of a disciplined group of activists (108), but Carmichael is attempting something more broad-based and populist. The book foreshadows that Carmichael’s attempt will fail, but even so, Run ends without Lewis offering a clear alternative. The narrative ends 20 years before Lewis’s run for Congress (presumably the reason for the title of this second planned trilogy), but as the first volume closes, it is unclear what Lewis is running to, or what he will do when he gets there. At the end of the story, Lewis effectively leaves his position of power, moving away to a new city instead of continuing to advocate for nonviolence. While Lewis can adapt and grow with the movement in his openness to internationalization and broader systemic issues, the very crux of his belief system begins to contradict the direction of the party. Instead of continuing to divide the movement, he slips away, leaving the door open for future activists and leaving space for all of the nuances that come with the fight for equality.