March, Representative John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
March, Representative John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell
Representative John Lewis is a hero of mine, but until I read this I didn't know how much so. I mean, you learn about the civil rights movement in high school, but they don't really make it clear to you. We saw a few pictures, but no video. We read a few summaries, but no primary sources. March is about as close as you can get to a primary source narrating a video.
March is the story of Rep. Lewis's involvement with the civil rights movement from his time in college to the signing of the Voting Rights Act. The frame story is the inauguration of Barack Obama, our nation's first African-American president, and one of the best we've had. It's hopeful, but real. There is so much violence and pain and death in its pages, all of it inflicted by white people on black people just trying to get their legal rights recognized. It also contains some of the eeriest and scariest panels I've ever seen in a graphic novel, the more so because they are real.
I'm going to talk about more books by and about POC tonight, but I wanted to talk about March separately, because I think it is so relevant right now, and that everyone should read it. Right now, we are going through a backlash against the rights of women, Muslim people, Jewish people, black people, Asian people, Native people, queer people, disabled people, just all across the board, if you are not a white straight Protestant man you are getting hit. And this, March, it showed me that it's been done before. People have done this before. We can do this again.
We can stand up to power and we can say, "No. Not here." They may attack and injure and kill us, but we can keep coming back. We have done it before. We are doing that now. We have won. We can win again.
No. Not here.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. Obviously.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/422387.html. Please comment over there if possible.
Representative John Lewis is a hero of mine, but until I read this I didn't know how much so. I mean, you learn about the civil rights movement in high school, but they don't really make it clear to you. We saw a few pictures, but no video. We read a few summaries, but no primary sources. March is about as close as you can get to a primary source narrating a video.
March is the story of Rep. Lewis's involvement with the civil rights movement from his time in college to the signing of the Voting Rights Act. The frame story is the inauguration of Barack Obama, our nation's first African-American president, and one of the best we've had. It's hopeful, but real. There is so much violence and pain and death in its pages, all of it inflicted by white people on black people just trying to get their legal rights recognized. It also contains some of the eeriest and scariest panels I've ever seen in a graphic novel, the more so because they are real.
I'm going to talk about more books by and about POC tonight, but I wanted to talk about March separately, because I think it is so relevant right now, and that everyone should read it. Right now, we are going through a backlash against the rights of women, Muslim people, Jewish people, black people, Asian people, Native people, queer people, disabled people, just all across the board, if you are not a white straight Protestant man you are getting hit. And this, March, it showed me that it's been done before. People have done this before. We can do this again.
We can stand up to power and we can say, "No. Not here." They may attack and injure and kill us, but we can keep coming back. We have done it before. We are doing that now. We have won. We can win again.
No. Not here.
Fuck Fascists Factor: 5--fascists will froth at the mouth. Obviously.
This entry is crossposted at http://bookblather.dreamwidth.org/422387.html. Please comment over there if possible.