Over the weekend I binge-read March, the graphic novel (in three volumes) by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. My advice is that you should absolutely read March but pace yourself. TW for racism and violence.

March describes Representative Lewis’s years with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). It’s told as a series of flashbacks remembered on the day of Barack Obama’s inauguration and bookended by memories of Bloody Sunday — the day when marchers tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.

Volume One describes John Lewis’s childhood, his participation in lunch counter sit-ins, and his first arrest. In Volume Two, he recalls his participation in the Freedom Rides, protests in Birmingham, and the March on Washington. Volume Three talks about the SNCC’s efforts to register voters in Alabama and the march from Selma to Montgomery (which included the crossing of the Edmund Pettus Bridge).

One thing this book does very well is demonstrate just how brutally violent responses to Civil Rights protesters were. It’s one thing to have an intellectual knowledge of the fact that protesters were often beaten. It’s another thing to see page after page of pictures of people being hit hard in the face (and much worse). Volume Two is particularly graphic in its illustration of the atrocities visited on the Freedom Riders. I don’t consider the depiction of violence in this book to be gratuitous, however. It frames the violence in a personal and specific way that shifts the reader’s perspective from an abstract sense of the danger faced by protesters to a visceral one. “Beaten” is a vague term but there’s nothing vague about what happens in this book.

Another thing this book does well is show that the Civil Rights Movement was messy, just like movements today. The story in school that I always heard around Martin Luther King Jr. Day was something like this:

Once upon a time there was segregation. That was bad. Martin Luther King Jr led a bunch of protests and marches and made a speech. Then he died and now we have a three-day holiday and segregation is gone.

The full story is, of course, much more complicated. It’s no disrespect to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to acknowledge that the civil rights movement involved many groups and many strong-willed people who were not always in accord. Lewis writes about the divisions within and between the SNCC and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. King, as well as the Congress of Racial Equality and the NAACP. He also writes about the role of women in the civil rights movement, and how women were crucial to the movement’s success but were frustrated by their lack of recognition.

As the Civil Rights Movement progressed, SNCC members struggled to determine the role, if any, that white people should take in the movement, as well as when, if ever, to engage in self-defense. All of the organizations struggled with choosing which fights to take on and when to retreat.

I suspect that every reader will take away something different from this book. I found myself inspired by the imperfection of the movement. Despite the divisions within and between groups, they were all able to focus on a common goal and often were part of each other’s projects, bringing different strengths. I was especially touched by the friendship that Lewis developed with Malcolm X, who offered Lewis emotional support when Lewis was discouraged — despite their very different approaches to activism.

Above all, this is a tremendous story – well paced, moving, with complex characters. It reminds us that segregation in the Jim Crow form was ended by people – imperfect, tired, cranky, flawed, but completely dedicated people, not saints. It’s a powerful reminder that we, the imperfect people that we are, also have the ability to create change, and that change is still very much needed.