By Reginald Stuart
When Nashville civil rights activist John Lewis was a student at American Baptist Theological Seminary, now American Baptist College, he never thought of someday being a comic book icon. It just may happen.
Persuaded by a young comic book enthusiast on his staff that his real-life story as a civil rights champion 50 years ago should be as interesting and inspiring to today’s young reader as any fictional hero, now Congressman Lewis is today getting rave reviews in the comic book and literary world for his new book “MARCH Book One.”
A 120-page paperback, its final text by staffer Andrew Aydin, and its storyline cartoons illustrated by New York Times cartoonist Nate Powell, Lewis’s book recaps in comic book action detail the not-so-funny ordeal of fighting legalized race discrimination on all fronts in Nashville and across the South.
The book, which Lewis is schedule to discuss this weekend during the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville, has hit No.1 on The New York Times best seller list. It’s been reviewed by The Washington Post. It has drawn hundreds to book events around the country since its release this summer. Most recently more than 200 people gathered in downtown Washington at the Newseum to hear Lewis and Aydin discuss the book.
Lewis is to speak Saturday afternoon at the War Memorial Auditorium in downtown Nashville and, on Sunday afternoon, take part in a reception and book signing at the Rymer Gallery on Fifth Avenue in the old McClellan’s building (233 Fifth Avenue North).
“I hope this book will inspire another generation to speak up, speak out and make some noise,” Lewis said in telephone interview this week, echoing his sentiments expressed during the days of the civil rights movement in the South.
For sure, “MARCH Book One” captures the essence of Nashville’s civil rights activities and the people and places that put that chapter of the city in history books around the world.
In a format that might initially shock serious academics, Lewis’s comic book captures the heart and soul of Nashville’s civil rights movement, its opportunities and challenges. It recognizes the roles played by many who helped it succeed and how and cites those who tried to make it fail along the way.
In telling his story, Lewis introduces comic book readers several Nashville civil rights champions like the late Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, attorney Z. Alexander Looby and Vanderbilt theology student James Lawson.
Readers get to meet former Mayor Ben West and learn of his unusual role. They meet the late Fisk University President Stephen Wright and Tennessee State College president Walter Davis.
The visual story brings old downtown Nashville back to life frame-by-frame. It depicts downtown Fifth Avenue, once vibrant with three dime stores with spacious lunch counters, none of which would serve Blacks. It highlights Cain Sloan and Harvey’s department stories and the W.T. Grant store on Church Street.
With those characters and settings, Lewis’s comic book story leaves little room for laughter and commands the reader’s attention.
Lewis, who came to Nashville at age 17 in the fall of 1957 and spent the next five years making history, said this week’s planned trip to Nashville is special in several respects.
For one, he said it will mark the first time since his civil rights days he’s returned to the building on Fifth Avenue North downtown that housed McClellan’s Department Store and one of the lunch counters he tried to help desegregate.
“I don’t remember going back there (to eat),” Lewis said. ‘I just wanted to desegregate their lunch counters.”
Also, any trip to Nashville is special for personal reasons, he said.
“It’s become second home for me,” Lewis said, noting Nashville was the first city in which he lived after leaving home in Troy, Alabama, for college.
Lewis’s book had a pre-publication debut this spring at the Book Expo of New York, American Library Association convention and Comic-Con in San Diego, the nation’s major comic books convention. In the weeks since, Lewis has promoted his civil rights era comic memoir at the National Conference of African-American Librarians, the Kennedy Library in Boston, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and the recent Congressional Black Caucus legislative conference in Washington.