March: Book Two

Andrew Aydin is a multi-award winning Turkish American author who worked with Lewis to co-author all three March books. Aydin worked in several governmental administration roles before becoming Senator John Lewis’s campaign communications director, digital director, and policy advisor from 2007 until Lewis’s death in 2020. 

The idea to co-create a graphic memoir arose when Lewis defended Aydin from fellow staffers teasing him about attending ComicCon, a famous fan convention, citing Martin Luther King & The Montgomery Story as an example of the power of comics. This comic, made by Dr. King and Jim Lawson, became a direct model for the March trilogy. Lewis passed away before the publication of the first installment of the Run series, the sequel series to March, which follows Lewis’s life after the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Aydin claims that the content from Run was co-developed with Lewis before his passing or drawn from Lewis’s written autobiography.

Nate Powell is a cartoonist from Little Rock, Arkansas. He has published writing and cartoons in many popular news venues, such as The Washington Post, Scholastic Magazine, CNN, The Weather Channel, and more. He served as the illustrator for the March trilogy, working alongside Lewis and Aydin. He has also illustrated a book of comic essays in 2021 titled Save It for Later: Promises, Protest, and Parenthood, which details his relationship with his children during a four-year era of protest, ranging from the first election of Donald Trump in 2016 to the aftermath of the police murder of George Floyd in 2020. 

Powell’s various projects have received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, multiple Eisner and Ignatz Awards, ALA and YALSA distinctions, the National Book Award, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, and the CXC Transformative Work Award.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) is an extremely influential person in Lewis’s life. When Lewis was a young man, he heard King preaching and realized that the rhetoric of Christianity could be used politically in the fight for civil rights. Due to growing awareness of The Nature of Media and Public Perception surrounding the civil rights movement, King increasingly emerges as a figurehead for the movement in the years the graphic memoirs cover.

King is part of the older generation of civil rights leaders who are sometimes criticized by their younger counterparts for capitulating or not going far enough in their resistance. For instance, in May 1961, King flies to Montgomery to support the Freedom Rides. He speaks to the news media about their resolve to continue, but when asked by Diane Nash if he’ll join the Rides, he says he can’t because he’s “still on probation from [his] last arrest in Atlanta” (90). Many participants object to this and think it is an excuse, as almost all of them are also on probation due to arrests that resulted from their participation in civil rights efforts, yet they are all still participating in the Rides. Similarly, in June 1961, Attorney General Bobby Kennedy tries to convince Diane Nash and others that it is a “better decision […] in the long run” (113) to stop their direct action and register Black voters instead. Rather than supporting his dissenting members, Dr. King “gave [Kennedy’s] idea his full support” (113). Instances such as these illuminate The Diversity of Tactics Within the Civil Rights Movement.

However, King ultimately has allegiance to the movement above anything else. For instance, when Bobby Kennedy pleads with King to convince the Riders to pay their bail, King stands behind their decision not to pay for bail for wrongful imprisonment. During this time, King also penned two highly influential pieces: “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and the “I Have a Dream“ speech.

In his capacity as Attorney General, Bobby Kennedy becomes more involved with the civil rights leaders Lewis’s memoir discusses as they face resistance during the Freedom Rides. When Bull Connor obstructs their progress and enables violence from the KKK, Kennedy tries to use the federal government to help fly the riders out of Birmingham. This action sums up Kennedy’s early relationship to the Freedom Rides and the civil rights leaders who organized them: While nominally supportive of integration, and willing to send hundreds of Federal Marshals to protect Freedom Riders during their rides, Kennedy also constantly appeals to the activists to pull back on their actions and be patient rather than insistent about getting their equal rights.

Before the March on Washington, Kennedy tells Lewis, “you have changed me” (152), and adds that he understands their struggle better in 1963 than a year or two ago. This evolution is the major way the memoir distinguishes Bobby Kennedy from the actions of his brother, President John F. Kennedy, who is also nominally supportive of civil rights but believes the marchers will bring “violence and chaos and disorder” (147) to Washington. Bobby Kennedy would later be assassinated in 1968, the same year as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and five years after his brother.

Diane Nash (b. 1938) is a civil rights activist who rose to prominence in the early 1960s through her involvement in leading lunch counter sit-ins with the Nashville Students Movement and helping to co-found the SNCC, both of which are recounted in March: Book One. 

In March: Book Two, Nash becomes an integral figure in the success of the Freedom Rides. For instance, when James Farmer, co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the initial leader of the Freedom Rides, wants to capitulate to Bobby Kennedy’s requests to fly the Riders out of Birmingham, Nash is the one who insists that “the movement is dead” (50) if they let violence compromise their actions. While Lewis attends the rides, Nash serves the vital role of organizer and liaison, constantly communicating with transportation, government, and media officials to raise the profile of their actions while also ensuring the safety of the Riders when they are in hostile territory.

Nash’s contributions to the organization of the March on Washington, particularly her role in publicizing the event among the Birmingham community, are largely elided from the memoir. This parallels the way female civil rights activists were historically rebuffed by organizers like A. Philip Randolph when they tried to advocate for a woman to speak at the March; instead, Randolph acknowledged several names from the stage, including Nash’s.

A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979) is a civil rights activist. By the time of the memoir’s events in the early 1960s, he is a veteran civil rights leader who has been organizing since World War II. Lewis attributes the original idea for a March on Washington to Randolph in the 1940s. In his role as a labor organizer, Randolph mobilized support for a potential march “over whether African-American workers would be integrated into the growing war economy” (146). As a result of this movement, President Roosevelt created the Fair Employment Practices Commission and Randolph called off the march.

One of the “Bix Six” leaders of the March, Randolph wants his friend Bayard Rustin—with whom he organized the first march in 1941—to be the 1963 March’s organizer. His fellow leaders veto this due to Rustin’s ties to socialism and his identity as a gay man. While they instead made Randolph the public figurehead of the March, he insists that Rustin be his second hand.

While Randolph is greatly admired by Lewis, who “could not say no” (164) to any of Randolph’s demands, in many ways he is indicative of the generational divide between Black civil rights leaders. Randolph represents the older, more conservative leaders who put a premium on respectability and compromise. When Lewis initially insists on keeping the strong, uncompromising language of his March on Washington speech, Randolph says, “I just don’t understand you SNCC people! You always want to be different” (162). Randolph asks Lewis and younger organizations like the SNCC to moderate their language and assimilate to the larger group.

Malcolm X is a civil rights leader who was assassinated at the age of 39 in 1965. He converted to the Nation of Islam after serving a prison sentence in the 1950s, but grew critical of the organization through the early 1960s and established his own branch of Islam called the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

Malcolm X was a revolutionary activist who was at times critical of the nonviolent protests and integration measures led by leaders like King and Lewis. Malcolm X advocated for civil rights and equity through the frame of Black Power and Black separatism: He was critical of how nonviolent integrationists like King and Lewis attempted to assimilate Black Americans into what he considered white social frameworks. However, through the late 1950s and early 1960s, Malcolm X sent appeals to King “inviting him to participate in mass meetings” and attempting to “to create an open forum for [B]lack leaders”—King never responded and rerouted Malcolm X’s missives to his secretary (“Malcolm X.” The Martin Luther King Jr. Institute). Malcolm X is often considered more militant than figures like King and Lewis. Malcolm X believed in defensive violence and the right of Black Americans to secure equity through any means necessary. In the years between Malcolm X’s assassination and his own, Dr. King became increasingly disillusioned with the ability of nonviolence to counter the depth of oppression faced by Black Americans, drawing him closer to Malcolm X’s position, although Dr. King never renounced nonviolent tactics.

Lewis positions the activism of Malcom X as counterproductive to his and King’s. He states that he “never felt like [Malcolm X] was part of the movement” (149). Despite the fact that Malcolm X was “deliberately not invited” (149) to planning for the March on Washington, Lewis sees him in attendance to offer his support. Malcolm X states that he will always show up to support his fellow Black people, even if they don’t always agree.