March: Book One

Series: March #1
Format: Paperback
GoodreadsmoreCongressman John Lewis (GA-5) is an American icon, one of the key figures of the civil rights movement. His commitment to justice and nonviolence has taken him from an Alabama sharecropper’s farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from the first African-American president.
Now, to share his remarkable story with new generations, Lewis presents March, a graphic novel trilogy, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and New York Times best-selling artist N...
This was the February Acme Comics Book Club pick that got postponed until the first week of March and then my lazy butt didn’t write this until now!
There is what you know and there is what you kind of know. I often talk about how my partner, Ben, remembers things from history and science and such better than me. I think part of this is the fact that he was home schooled and dealt with a lot more source material instead of textbooks with fact lists. I live in Greensboro where four young men sat down at the Woolworth’s counter and they were not the proper color. This book takes place elsewhere but does mention them. This book gave a… substance to the era and to the actions that it did not have for me before.
I also often talk about how I like when people in history feel like actual people. We act as if people in history or people in power are Hercules of myth, but they are just people. People with jobs and families and hopes and bills to pay. A lot of what I enjoyed about this book was that sense of tangibility. It isn’t just about the most famous people and there are details like the chickens. The fact that John Lewis needed his parents permission to try to become a student at a white school because it would be putting them in danger. The people who were preparing for sit ins only slowly but surely. The people who were part of the movement but knew they couldn’t be at the forefront because they knew they couldn’t stop themselves from lashing out. Even details like the fact that the police dropped the bail amount to try to empty the jail but they still refused to post bail until they were simply released.
I also thought it was interesting how it was put into the context of a story told on the eve of another historic event, the inauguration of Barack Obama. I liked how this both said that it is never over and also emphasized that it was not so long ago. It also resonates currently because of other more recent struggles, like the rights of LGBTQ+ people. Overall I found the book very accessible, easy to read, quick, enjoyable, and enlightening. I’m not sure what else you could ask for.