Lewis was influenced by Thoreau’s form of civil disobedience. Like Thoreau, Lewis believes that if a law is corrupt, a man should not be ashamed of breaking it and then getting arrested and jailed on account of it. Lewis, again like Thoreau, believes in taking a stand against injustice through a public demonstration. This is evident in the lines, “I felt that any form of action, any form of drama of this kind, was helpful and effective. I think that whenever you can get a large group of people together, whether it's to march, or to have a prayer vigil, or to sit in, you should.”
Also like Thoreau, Lewis believes in protesting in a nonviolent way, as seen in the lines that reference Malcolm X: “Malcolm was not part of the movement. The movement had a goal of an integrated society, an interracial democracy, a Beloved Community. What Malcolm X represented were the seeds of something different, something that would eventually creep into the movement itself and split it apart . . . To his credit, he preached personal independence and responsibility, self-discipline and self-reliance. But he also urged the black man to fight back in self-defense—‘by any means necessary,’ as he famously put it. And I just could not accept that.” John Lewis implicitly states that nonviolent civil disobedience was the answer to the civil rights movement. This notion, as well as the promotion of “self-discipline and self-reliance," are ideas Lewis shares with Thoreau.