March: Book Two

In these pages, the Freedom Rides begin, and the participants start to find their identity as a diverse collective of civil rights activists, showing The Power of Collective Action and Community Organizing. Besides himself and organizer James Farmer, Lewis has 11 “fellow Freedom Riders” (32). Perfectly symmetrical, even rectangular panels across page 33 show illustrations of the original Riders, usually from the shoulders up. None of these riders are given bigger panels or extra space, demonstrating the equity they instate among their ranks, despite the great diversity in their numbers. There are white members and Black members, men and women. There is a professor, Dr. Walter Bergman, and college students, Charles Person and Hank Thomas. There are people with civilian jobs like Jimmy McDonald, a Black folk singer from New York, and professional organizers, like a white woman who works for CORE called Genevieve Hughes. 

The original group also contains Jim Peck, a white man who is a radical pacifist and the only Freedom Rider to also participate in “CORE’s first Freedom Ride, the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947, which landed participants in a chain gang” (33). Peck engaged in that march alongside Bayard Rustin, who enters Lewis’s memoir in the last section of pages. This group of people demonstrate what is effective about collective, community action: A diverse group of people come together, bringing their unique perspectives, experiences, and knowledge for the betterment of their collective cause.

The actions of this group also show the amount of preparation and thought that goes into the Freedom Riders’ strategy, reflecting The Diversity of Tactics Within the Civil Rights Movement. They spend a full “three days training [them]selves for what lay ahead” (34). They study philosophers and literary figures like “Gandhi, Thoreau, Emerson” (34), and they gain a deep knowledge of what the laws should be and what actions they can take if those laws are transgressed by police or government officials. An illustration of a presentation poster shows the Riders learning about legal topics like “interstate transport laws” and their “exceptions,” like “the intrastate exception” (34). 

This studious and well-researched preparation contrasts with the emotional vitriol immediately exhibited by white supremacist rioters. In Charlotte, when Lewis tries to recite these laws to a white man who calls him the n-word and blocks his way into the facilities, the white man replies shortly, “Shit on that” (39) and punches Lewis in the face. This punch is illustrated with the sound effect “KRAK” (39), demonstrating the force behind the punch, and the white man’s fist breaks the boundary of the panel, visually demonstrating his disregard for, and transgression of, the law.



Other visual images help characterize the personality of the mobs that attack the Riders. On page 41, a man with a large Confederate flag on his jacket pushes and stomps over Genevieve Hughes. This flag was used by the Confederate States of America during the United States Civil War. The main conflict between the Confederate States and the United States was about the future of the system of enslaving Black people. In the 20th century, the Confederate Flag is associated with enslavement, racism, white supremacy, and segregation. On page 41, it is used as a visual cue to signal the attitudes their attackers have toward Black Americans. 

Similarly, on page 69 as the Riders shelter in the bus terminal overnight, the Ku Klux Klan gather outside. A large panel takes up the middle half of the page: From the perspective of the Riders inside the building, they see dozens of people wearing masked, tall, pointed white hoods and robes. These robes are the Klan’s most distinguishing feature and are a hate symbol. These pages never state the words “Confederacy” or “Ku Klux Klan,” but visual signifiers are used to convey the identities and ideologies of the Riders’ opposition.

The conflict faced by the Freedom Riders in these pages is heightened by the introduction of an antagonistic figure, Bull Connor. While Connor is a distinct, historical individual, his place in the bureaucracy of Birmingham demonstrates how resistance to integration and other civil rights demands were opposed systemically in the South rather than by single, isolated people. Connor works together with institutions that are able to stymie the Riders’ progress. He tells the Riders he is putting them into “protective custody” (59), while the illustrations show him ordering police officers to drag unmoving and severely beaten Riders into jail cells. This dissonance between what Connor says and does exemplifies how the Riders’ opponents are able to manipulate institutions in their abuse of the activists.