maiakobabe 's review for:

March: Book Two by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin

5.0

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This is the second book in the graphic novel biography of Congressman John Lewis (Ga-5), and it is even more gripping than the first volume. The story cuts back and forth between brief scenes of President Obama's swearing in as the President of the United States and Lewis's experiences as the leader of the SNCC (the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) in the early 1960s. Lewis participated in the Freedom Ride to test the desegregation of the bus system that lead to devastating violence in Birmingham, Alabama. The contrast of seeing Lewis being beaten and jailed in the South, then invited to meetings at the White House and personally acknowledged by Robert Kennedy, is astonishing. Lewis was one of the six speakers on the Washington DC March on August 28th, 1963, and his speech to this day is moving and necessary. Nate Powell's expressive, detailed and historically accurate drawings keep this book humming with energy.