TOP SHELF PRODUCTIONS – @topshelfcomix
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
WRITERS: John Lewis and Andrew Aydin
ARTIST: Nate Powell
EDITOR: Leigh Walton
ISBN: 978-1-60309-400-9; paperback with French flaps – 6.5" x 9.5" (January 20, 2015)
192pp, B&W, $19.95 U.S., $25.95 CAN
Congressman John Lewis is Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District Representative (GA-5, Democrat). Lewis was also one of the “Big Six” leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement (with the others being Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., James Farmer, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young). Before such fame and accomplishments, he was born John Robert Lewis in February 1940 to sharecropper parents, Willie Mae (Carter) and Eddie Lewis.
In 2013, Top Shelf Productions began publishing a series of three graphic novels, entitled March, that would chronicle the life of Congressman Lewis, from his childhood to his college-age youth as a participant in and organizer of dangerous protests. The story ultimately moves into Lewis' years as a leader in the Civil Rights movement and as someone who shaped and influenced change, politically and socially. March is written by Congressman Lewis and Andrew Aydin, one of Lewis' top advisers, and is drawn and lettered by Nate Powell, an award-winning illustrator and comic book creator.
March Book Two (January 2015), like March Book One, uses the inauguration of President Barack Obama (January 20, 2009) as a framing sequence. The story then moves back to November 1960. After the success of the Nashville sit-in campaign to desegregate lunch counters, the Nashville Student Movement is ready to make its next moves. The students want to desegregate fast food restaurants and cafeterias and movie theaters so that that black people can receive the same service that white people do. John Lewis is more committed than ever to changing the world through nonviolence — but he is about to become involved in his most perilous venture yet.
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) plans to test a recent favorable Supreme Court ruling, Boynton v. Virginia, which outlawed racial segregation on buses and in bus terminals. CORE called this program Freedom Ride 1961, and the young activists involved are dubbed “Freedom Riders.” However, these “Freedom Riders” plan to go into the heart of the deep south in order to segregate bus terminals in cities like Birmingham, Alabama and New Orleans, Louisiana, and they will be tested as never before. They must face beatings from vicious white devils... (I mean) civilians, police brutality, imprisonment, arson, and even murder. With their lives on the line, these young activists also face internal conflicts that threatens to tear them apart.
I never doubted that March Book Two could be as powerful as March Book One, but now, I think that Book Two passes the first book in terms of intensity. Book Two also chronicles how John Lewis and his fellow activists attracted the notice people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who would become powerful allies. We also witness Lewis get elected chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), thrusting the 23-year-old into the national spotlight. We see Lewis become one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement and a central figure in the landmark 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. March Book Two also depicts the speech that Lewis gave at that historic march, and, at the back of this graphic novel, the original version of Lewis' speech is reprinted. The section of the story that deals with the “negotiations” involved in getting Lewis to make changes to his speech is riveting.
However, the spine of March Book Two is the harrowing depiction and recounting of “Freedom Ride 1961.” Lewis and Andrew Aydin's script, narration, and dialogue are some of the most powerful that I have ever read in a comic book. As I read those glorious pages, I felt as if my blood was freezing, at the same time that my heart was a'pounding. If Lewis and Aydin's text about the Freedom Riders was reprinted without the art, it would still be compelling and effective.
I could say the same thing about the art. If Nate Powell's illustrations and graphics for March Book Two were reprinted without the text and word balloons in an art book, they would still be all-powerful and potent storytelling. Even as pantomime comics, Powell's work here would force us to understand every bit of Lewis' story as told by the Congressman and Mr. Aydin. Powell is easily one of the very best comic book illustrators of the still young twenty-first century. He is in my Top 10.
Fortunately for us, Lewis, Aydin, and Powell work as one almighty comic book creative team. On that ride back through time, they transport us onto the buses for the most perilous bus rides in American history. Because of the felicity with which they tell this story, Lewis, Aydin, and Powell honor not only Lewis' story, but they also honor the men and women, black and white, who put everything on the line for freedom and equality. March Book Two was and still is 2015's best original graphic novel and best work of comics.
10 out of 10
For more information about the March trilogy, visit here or at http://www.topshelfcomix.com/march
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
The text is copyright © 2018 Leroy Douresseaux. All Rights Reserved. Contact this blog or site for syndication rights and fees.
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