March: Book One

Nonfiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Adult | Published in 2013

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 5-9

Pages 10-45

Pages 46-62

Pages 63-82

Pages 83-121

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Pages 63-82Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Pages 63-82 Summary

Lewis is pulled out of his reminiscence by the mother of the two sons. The woman asks about his college and schooling and is hoping to set an example for her boys about the importance of an education. Lewis recalls how his mother had found a paper that mentioned a seminary Lewis could attend, and she encouraged Lewis to apply. Lewis was accepted and found a job washing dishes in a restaurant to pay his way through school. While he studied, he felt moved to do more to combat injustice. Lewis applied to Troy State University where no Black student had ever attended; when Lewis did not hear back from the university, he decided to write to Dr. King. After exchanging several letters with Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Fred Gray, Rosa Parks’s lawyer and now Dr. King’s, Lewis received a letter saying that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wanted to meet him.

In their meeting, King told Lewis his parents would have to sign an agreement for Lewis to sue, and he encouraged Lewis to discuss what he wanted to do with his family and emphasized they would endure many hardships as a result of Lewis’s actions. Lewis’s parents were unwilling to participate, so Lewis wrote a letter to Dr. King stating he would be returning to his school in Nashville instead. However, Lewis’s time in Nashville was culturally fortuitous, as in introduced him to a community and concepts that would influence him for the rest of his life.

Lewis’s story is interrupted as the woman and her sons leave, and Lewis is informed he has a message from Jim Lawson. The frames then return to their historical retelling, focusing on March 26, 1958. Lewis met Lawson at the church he was attending in Nashville, and Lawson introduced him to the principles outlined by the pacifist group called The Fellowship of Reconciliation. Lawson spoke about the ways nonviolence could be used to eradicate war and racism, and Lewis felt inspired. He encouraged everyone he knew to attend Lawson’s workshops.

Lawson asked the attendees to practice calling each other names and dehumanizing one another. Illustrations of the young activists sitting stoically are framed with speech bubbles of racial slurs and harassing remarks. The protestors practiced not reacting and not giving in to violence. Lawson also showed them how to protect themselves and each other. He emphasized they were to have love for those attacking them.

Pages 63-82 Analysis

While Lewis feels he is ready to make his mark on the civil rights movement, he does not foresee exactly how that mark is to be made. Highlighting the power of scholarship and education, Lewis’s mother works hard to provide for her son and introduces Lewis to the seminary he will later attend. He also works hard by washing dishes to earn his way through college. Lewis feels confident that Troy University is the path to his advocacy, but his own parents’ reservations about disturbing the cultural waters bring him back once again to Nashville. It is in Nashville, however, that Lewis meets Jim Lawson, Diane Nash, and others who will have a profound effect on his life and trajectory.

Here, the theme of endurance in the face of adversity takes on a new form. Lewis is ready to lead to and join the fight for social justice, but he is held back by his own parents’ fear. King warns Lewis that fighting Troy University’s enrollment policies would present a great deal of adversity, and his parents do not feel they can handle the pressure his decision would place on them. Lewis does not let this deter him from fighting for the cause. Instead, he finds a different path toward the same goal.

Jim Lawson looms large in Lewis’s life and experience, and it is his influence that further solidifies Lewis’s adherence to nonviolent resistance. Lewis and his peers use the social gospel and nonviolent action to develop a plan to resist the segregation at department store lunch counters in Tennessee. Lawson teaches the student group about Gandhi and encourages them to view peaceful resistance as a means to rid the country of the evils of poverty, racism, and war. These three evils are symbolized through Powell’s illustrations. Poverty is shown as a weak and dirty hand. Racism is illustrated as a hand holding a noose. War is depicted as an amputated arm. Lewis says Lawson’s words made him feel “liberated” (78). Lewis invites all his friends to attend Lawson’s inspiring workshops.

The group’s practice of nonviolent resistance best illustrates how social gospel and nonviolent action can affect change. They take turns calling each other names, using racial slurs, knocking each other down, and spitting on one another. For some, these role-playing activities are too much. However, the group knows these practices are necessary to prepare them for the hard work of activism and what they are about to face.