MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

 


Published in 2016 by Top Shelf Productions

Written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Illustrated by Nate Powell.

2016 National Book Award Winner for Young People's Literature

2017 Printz Award Winner

2017 Coretta Scott King Author Award Winner

2017 Sibert Medal Winner

2017 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner

2017 Walter Award Winner

Congressman John Lewis (1940-2020) continues his life story in book three of the March series, focusing on his struggles in the Civil Rights Movement. The book starts with the 16th Street Birmingham Church Bombing in September of 1963 and ends with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in August of 1965.

These were, by any account, much like the famous Charles Dickens line from A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair..."

It was the best of times in that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were passed. It was the worst of times because of these landmark laws were passed due to great sacrifices. As noted on page 91, in the state of Mississippi in the summer of 1964 during an attempt to mobilize and register black voters there were "more than 1,000 arrests, 80 beatings, 35 church burnings, and 30 bombings."

A theme that runs throughout the trilogy is that every success is soured by a violent response. I was particularly struck by an act of pointless violence at the end of the book. When the march from Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, Alabama finally happens (it had been turned back on other attempts by violence and by court order) there is a rally, there are speeches, and a concert given by an amazingly diverse crowd of artists - diverse in race and in musical styles. What should have been a beautiful moment is marred by the murder of a volunteer driver named Viola Luzzo from Detroit. She was shuttling people back to Selma. She was heading back to Montgomery to pick up more people when a car pulled alongside. A single shot was fired and she was killed (see picture.)

This is an excellent trilogy and an excellent way to tell this history. I rate this book and the entire trilogy 5 stars out of 5. 

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: MARCH: BOOK THREE (graphic novel) by by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.

Click here for March: Book One.

Click here for March: Book Two.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts over the last 30 days

ATTUCKS! OSCAR ROBERTSON and the BASKETBALL TEAM THAT AWAKENED A CITY by Phillip Hoose

Image
Published in 2018 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) NOTE: Also published under the title UNBEATABLE! Attucks!  appears to be just a story about a 1950's era basketball team, but it is much more than that. it is the story of Jim Crow style racism in a northern state. It is the story of an underdog school getting its chance to compete at the highest level. It is the story of one amazing player, a great coach, and Indiana's famous single class basketball system. First - the single class basketball system. Back in the 1900's, Indiana had a single class basketball system. This means that every team was in the same playoff system together - no matter how big or how small. This was highlighted in the based-on-a-true-story movie Hoosiers. The true story had Milan High School (161 students) beating Muncie Central (1600+ students) in 1954. Usually, it wasn't that dramatic of a disparity, but small town schools did very well from 1911-1954. The biggest city in the state, Indianap
Read more

TRAVELS with GEORGE: IN SEARCH of WASHINGTON and HIS LEGACY (audiobook) by Nathaniel Philbrick

Image
Published in 2021 by Penguin Audio. Read by the author, Nathaniel Philbrick. Duration: 9 hours, 34 minutes. Unabridged. George Washington looked at the newly formed United States of America and saw what it had always been - 13 disunited states with nothing to bind them together. Washington may not have been the deepest-thinking founding father, but some things he just "knew" deep in his bones. What did he know in this case? He knew that they actually all did have something in common. They all had George Washington in common. So, George went on a series of extended trips around the states until he had visited all 13 of them and he gave them a visible introduction/reminder (it depended on the state and the citizens) of what the new United States of America was all about. Travels with George is the story of those tours. Each state had its own issues. For example, Rhode Island wasn't even a state when the started traveling - it was holding out. The Southern states, especiall
Read more

THEY CALLED US ENEMY (graphic novel) by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott

Image
Published in 2019 by Top Shelf Productions. Illustrated by Harmony Becker. Winner of the 2020 Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work. Winner of the 2020 American Book Award. George Takei is most famous for his part in the the original Star Trek series and the subsequent movies. But, over the last 20 years or so, Takei has been on a personal crusade to make sure that the  Japanese Internment Camps are not forgotten.  President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order in February of 1942 to place all of the Japanese on the west coast of the United States into camps because they could not be trusted not to help the Empire of Japan. This order applied to all Japanese, even if there was absolutely no reason to suspect them of doing anything at all to help Japan. Takei's family was included in this round up and this graphic novel is that story. The graphic novel format is ideal for the story of a young man caught up in a situation he cannot possibly understand. Takei does a goo
Read more

WINGS of MOURNING: THE FORGOTTEN FLEET, BOOK 2 (audiobook) by Craig Andrews

Image
Book version originally published by My Story Productions in 2021. Audiobook published by My Story Productions in 2024. Read by Shamaan Casey . Duration: 10 hours, 32 minutes. Unabridged. My Synopsis Wings of Mourning is the 2nd book in a trilogy about a future war between humanity and an insectoid species. While not a particularly original sci-fi concept, the first book was still entertaining and hinted at all sorts of possibilities.  Humanity had been winning the war in space by using drone fighter based on carrier ships. The drones were so effective because the pilots would not die if the drone was shot down - they pilot could just switch to a new drone and rejoin the fight. This was all well and good until the insectoid race (the Baranyk) developed an undetectable way to jam transmissions to the drone fighter ships, leaving the carriers vulnerable to attack. The tide of the war turned against humanity until a retired fighter pilot suggested pulling the old pre-drone fighter ships
Read more

FINISH WHAT WE STARTED: THE MAGA MOVEMENT'S GROUND WAR to END DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Isaac Arnsdorf

Image
Published in April of 2024 by Little, Brown, and Company. Read by Will Damron. Duration: 8 hours, 52 minutes. Unabridged. Finish What We Started is a look at the MAGA/Trump movement from a different perspective. There are lots of books about Trump, his children, Roger Stone, Stephen Miller, Bill Barr, Mike Pence, or any of the other big players in the Trump Administration.  This book is different. It looks at regular people caught up in the movement in official positions and how they reacted. There is a guy who wrote a kindle e-book about the real power of political parties - the local precinct committee person in numbers. The theory is that if you get enough like-minded people in charge of the local precincts, you will control the party. That author gets the attention of Steve Bannon and his popular podcast and people start buying the book and putting its principles in action. Bannon is the only famous person featured in the book.  The book chronicles the transition from traditional
Read more

BEARSKIN: A NOVEL (audiobook) by James A. McLaughlin

Image
Published in 2018 by HarperAudio. Read by MacLeod Andrews. Duration: 9 hours, 49 minutes. Unabridged. Synopsis: Bearskin features Rice Moore as the caretaker of a piece of Appalachian Virginia wilderness for a foundation. His job includes is walking the property, cataloging what he finds, remodeling the house on the property, and keeping poachers out.  He's also hiding. A few years back he was caught smuggling drugs across the border from Mexico and ended up serving time in a Mexican prison. In the prison, Moore killed a man who was highly connected to a Mexican cartel and now he has taken on an assumed identity in the middle of nowhere in Virginia.  When someone starts killing bears on the foundation property just to harvest organs to sell in Asia, Rice knows that he has to do something, even if it risks blowing his cover... My Review: This book sounds interesting and exciting. I found it underwhelming in so many ways.  The book started out with tons of description. That's no
Read more

GRIGORI RASPUTIN: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (kindle) by Hourly History

Image
Published in 2017 by Hourly History. I am an avid reader of history, but I have areas of weakness that I am perfectly willing to shore up a bit, but I don't want to invest a ton of time. I want to know a bit more, not become an expert. The Russian Revolution one of those areas for me. I know a lot more than most people, but I can clearly see the that there is a lot that I don't know. Rasputin is, of course, an iconic, almost mythical personality of the Russian Revolution. This series specializes in short biographies and histories that will take the average reader about an hour to read. There are plenty of people and historic events that I would like to know a little more about, but not necessarily commit to reading a 500 page biography or history.  Rasputin is one of those people for me - interesting but not really worth that much of an investment of my time. I've read a few biographies from Hourly History and, without a doubt, this was the best of the lot so far. Rasputin
Read more

WHITE RURAL RAGE: THE THREAT to AMERICAN DEMOCRACY (audiobook) by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman

Image
Published in 2024 by Random House Audio. Read by Ray Porter. Duration: 11 hours, 2 minutes. Unabridged. White Rural Rage is a look at the rural/urban divide in the United States in politics as personified in the MAGA movement.  The book is broken up into multiple chapters, each with a theme about how rural America is advantaged even though they claim they are put upon by urban elites. Sometimes, the authors have a point, sometimes they are just grinding their axes for no particular reason (like in the pickup truck chapter.) The book has some excellent points, but it clearly written like an extended opinion hit piece rather than an extended informational piece and that did nothing but hurt the audiobook in my opinion.  I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: WHITE RURAL RAGE: THE THREAT to AMERICAN DEMOCRACY by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman.
Read more

KING PHILLIP II: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

Image
  Published in 2020 by Hourly History. King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire.  Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children. His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill while being held in confinement by
Read more

THE MOMENT: THOUGHTS on the RACE RECKONING THAT WASN'T and HOW WE CAN ALL MOVE FORWARD NOW (audiobook) by Bakari Sellers

Image
Published in 2024 by HarperAudio. Read by the author, Bakari Sellers. Duration: 4 hours, 33 minutes. Unabridged. The Moment that Bakari Sellers refers to in his book is the so-called moment of racial reckoning that came with the murder of George Floyd and the protests all around the country that followed. Sellers discusses a lot of relevant things that lead up to this moment including the murder of 9 African Americans by a young White supremacist in Charleston in 2015 and Covid-19. But, events like the Buffalo shooting  of 2022, continued questionable acts of  and media and political-types discussing the Great Replacement Theory from 2017 until the present day have shown that moment of reckoning was not a big a moment that people supposed it was. Or, it demonstrates that the racist elements in America are pushing back hard. I have run across Sellers as a guest on a couple of different podcasts that I follow and have always found him to be thoughtful and engaging. I have to admit, ho
Read more