March: Book Two

Content Warning: This section of the guide feature depictions of racism, antigay bias, and graphic violence.

John Lewis (1940-2020) is the co-author and central figure of March: Book Two. The frame narrative in 2009 features Lewis as an older man, serving as a Representative from Georgia’s fifth district in the US Congress. In this timeline, he attends the inauguration of the first Black President of the United States, Barack Obama.

The flashbacks detail events from Lewis’s life between the years 1961 and 1963. This short span of years introduces massive change in Lewis’s life and national profile. In early 1961, Lewis is committed to the cause but recognizes the unpredictability surrounding both it and his life. The nation is going through many changes that make their activities uncertain. He notes that after their lunch counter success, their “nonviolent actions were met with increasingly more violent responses” (11), anticipating the rift that develops later between leaders on how to deal with these responses. Additionally, Kennedy wins the presidency over Nixon. Lewis writes, “What that would mean for me—and for African-Americans in general—I did not know” (10). Lewis recognizes how drastically his life could be changed by the actions of the executive branch.