March: Book One: 02/15/17

March: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell is the start of a trilogy that recounts Senator Lewis's participation in the civil rights movement. Lewis's memoir is framed in the story of him meeting with some attendees to President Obama's second inauguration.

This nonfiction comic covers the early years of the movement, beginning with a Lewis's childhood where he was in charge of the chickens and how he spent his time preaching the gospel to them. His early calling and his aptitude for giving entertaining sermons caught the attention of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

The second half of this book focuses on the sit ins at lunch counters and the training the participants went through to guarantee that they would keep their cool no matter how awful they were treated.

If I had read this book when it was first published, I suspect I would have read it with greater optimism. It's presented in a hopeful tone on that draws a line from the the sit-ins and the marches to Obama's presidency.

Now though with how the election has gone, I see these books more as manuals for the next generation of protestors. Things weren't perfect but now racism has an open forum and it scares me.

Five stars

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