Preaching to the Chickens: The Story of Young John Lewis

This biography looks at John Lewis’s childhood in rural Pike County, Alabama, before his later career in public life. As a boy, John imagined becoming a minister and practiced speaking to an audience by preaching to his family’s chickens. He drew on the ministers he heard at church, using the chickens when there were few other listeners nearby. The account follows the beginnings of the speaking skills that would later shape his work as a Civil Rights leader and politician.