Lewis’s was a vision of nonviolent social change that has more in common with the martyrs of old than with the politics of a given hour. “At the moment when I was hit on the bridge and began to fall,” Lewis recalled, “I really thought it was my last protest, my last march. I thought I saw death, and I thought, ‘It’s okay, it’s all right—I am doing

et de plus il me semblait criminellement anachronique d’être entraîné, en plein XXe siècle, au maniement d’instruments de mort. La position juste pour un homme qui avait mes convictions eût été de me déclarer conscientious objector en temps de guerre, ce qui, en Autriche (contrairement à l’Angleterre), vous faisait encourir les plus lourdes peines

That led to a deep aspiration that the war would end and allow all Vietnamese and all Americans to live in peace. Once that aspiration was clear, there was only one path to take — to work for the end of the war.