March: Book One

The opening section grounds the graphic novel in historical events and emphasizes the important role the protest at Edmund Pettus Bridge plays in John Lewis’s legacy. Although the book only identifies one protestor by first name in this section, the two men leading the protests across Edmund Pettus Bridge are 19-year-old Hosea Williams and 25-year-old John Lewis, who is one of the authors and the subject of this autobiographical work.

These two men led over 600 men, women, and children in a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, on March 7, 1965, which is now referred to as “Bloody Sunday.” This peaceful protest was met with violent aggression by Alabama law enforcement. This march was in reaction to the failure of Alabama to make good on the promises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; Black citizens were angry and frustrated that their attempts to register to vote had been repeatedly impeded. The trek was to last 54 miles, spanning from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, but the protestors were stopped on the bridge after State Governor George Wallace ordered state troopers to stop the march. Despite the use of tear gas and clubs by law enforcement, the protesters never fought back.

The Edmund Pettus Bridge was named after the Confederate general and renowned member of the Ku Klux Klan, Edmund Pettus. The cultural significance of peaceful protesters marching across the bridge named after a KKK leader is a lesson in irony. On this day, television cameras took footage of the event, and networks aired the brutality of law enforcement toward the peaceful protesters. The event became a turning point for the civil rights movement and mobilized people across the country to fight against systemic racism, which resulted in the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

While much of the book uses first person point of view as Lewis recounts tales of his childhood and advocacy, this section uses a third person point of view through the medium of graphic images. The section serves as a hook to the reader, grounding the work in its historical importance. Its third person storytelling places the reader in the middle of the action; they are no longer an outside observer but a participant in the scene. In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud describes how the images in a comic can advance the narrative in a scene and allow the words to enhance but not tell the whole story. In this opening section, the emotion in the protestors’ expressions, dark panels, and action shots of law enforcement gassing and advancing on the marchers drives the plot forward. The words serve to fill the frames with sounds and shouts, which further implant the reader in the moment.

One character asks, “Can you swim?” (5). This simple question reveals what the protestors knew they might have to face and that their peaceful march was an act of terminal risk. This question sparks the beginning of the theme about endurance in the face of adversity. The protestors knew they were about to face extreme violence and may even be thrown from the bridge. However, they endured and continued to march, even as they saw the line of armed officers on the other side of the bridge.