March Books 1,2,3 by John Lewis- Book Review

I had been debating whether or not to purchase March by John Lewis and then the whole Twitter war with the President started and I decided to pull the trigger. I felt this weekend, while women were marching all over the world, it was also a great time to read the series.

March is a look at the Civil Rights movement from the very beginning until the march in Selma. The story is told through a graphic novel with each volume focusing on a particular aspect of the movement. Each has a modern day occurrence happening to bring back the flashback.

March Volume 1 focuses mostly on John Lewis' life from his early years as a chicken farmer to his start in Civil Rights. It ends with with the lunch counter protests. The whole story is told as two children visit Lewis' office.

March Volume 2 ramps up the violence a bit as well as the use of the N word. The Freedom Riders take center stage in this one and the I Have a Dream speech by King. The whole story is told around President Obama's inauguration.

March Volume 3 again ramps up the violence as more resistance grows. This focuses a lot on getting to Selma and the march. Death becomes normal in this volume, sadly. It is told while President Obama and Lewis converse with one another.

The artwork in all three volumes are just incredible. As the story continues there tended to be more solid black pages with white writing. The use of black and white rather than color helped bring the story to life.

This is not only the story of Civil Rights, but very much Lewis' story as well. It isn't always pretty and he even chooses to discuss where people disagreed within the movement and what direction it should go. He talks about moments when even he started to question the idea of non-violence as the appropriate action. It is a real story and it isn't made prettier than it was.

I found it especially disheartening that some of the language and reasons as to why black individuals shouldn't be able to vote are coming back into our current political climate. One forgets this was only 50 years ago, so we have a lot of places to grow still. This is definitely worth the read for all.

I gave this one 5 stars.

Here is your Amazon link- March Books 1, 2,+3