March Book Three by John Lewis

"The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men."

In March, Book Three, John Lewis chronicles the efforts of Black Americans to obtain true equality, peace and brotherhood in their country.

His story continues with the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. This church was a headquarters of the civil rights movement in Birmingham. Sunday September 15 was its annual "Youth Day" and hundreds of young people were attending. The bombing killed four young girls: Addie May Collins, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley and Denise McNair. Dr. King told those at the funeral that they needed to look at "the system, the way of life, the philosophy which produced the murderers."

Diane Nash had a plan to have thousands of young people to peacefully demonstrate Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, cutting off roads, trains, airports, the government and shutting down everything. The goals were to force segregationist Governor George Wallace out of office and obtain the right to vote for every adult in Alabama. Dr. King did not agree with this plan but Lewis and Nash felt that SNCC had to do something. They decided to target the city of Selma in Dallas County, where sixty-three protestors had been arrested. 

Lewis, who was chairman of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) believed they needed to focus on "One Man, One Vote" because Blacks faced enormous odds attempting to register to vote. Protests in front of the Dallas County Courthouse saw many arrests, including John Lewis.

On October 7, 1963, SNCC mobilized dozens of people lined up outside in the hot sun to register to vote. Major Joe Smelley in charge of the state troopers and Jim Clarke, the mean and violent sheriff of Dallas County, refused to allow anyone to leave the line and return for bathroom and water breaks. Despite this, people stayed in line, while only twelve Blacks were allowed to register. 

Lewis became involved in the Freedom Vote, an event conceived and organized by Bob Moses, a Harvard graduate and Al Lowenstein, a white activist and former dean at Stanford University. Freedom Vote was a staged "mock election" with Black candidates, in which Black men and women could participate. The goal was to give them a sense of what it was like to participate in the electoral process.

Freedom Vote placed ballot boxes all across Mississippi, in churches, barber shops, grocery stores and beauty parlors. Then in November, 1963, John F. Kennedy Jr. was assassinated. Lewis and others wondered what it would mean for the civil rights movement, which Kennedy and his brother Robert had come to support.

Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president; he was committed to passing a civil rights bill even though he had voted against racial equality in the past. But he wanted civil rights groups including SNCC to stop their protests. They did not.

In the final meeting of 1963, Lewis and the SNCC executive decided to work to obtain the right for all citizens of Mississippi to vote in the election year of 1964. At the convention of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Lewis and others reminded reporters that anyone interfering in any way "with the right of a Negro to vote in Mississippi commits a crime against the Federal government" per Title 18, Section 594 of the United States Code. 

They also announced that working with other civil rights groups, they planned to place one thousand summer workers in Mississippi, teaching in Freedom Schools and staffing community centers. These would register up to four hundred thousand Negroes on mock polling lists and would also do voter registration. Lewis told reporters they would challenge the right of white Mississippians to chose congressional representatives if none of the Black candidates were elected. They also intended to challenge the Democratic Convention in August over full recognition, the Federal Government on the illegal intimidation/arrests during voter registration. Freedom Summer was going to be about real votes. 

They also created the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) to challenge Mississippi's "segregation-based Democratic party" and its white-only delegation for their seats at the Democratic convention in Atlantic City, N.J. This would be done by following proper procedures at all levels.

In late June, three Freedom Summer volunteers went missing in Neshoba County.  They were Mickey Schwerner, Andy Goodman and James Chaney, a Black Mississippian. Their burned out station wagon was pulled from Bogue Chitto Creek without their bodies. The FBI and Navy were called in to search for them.  Meanwhile the violence continued throughout Mississippi with shootings and harassment of Blacks by whites. 

On July 2, 1964, the Civil Rights Act became law but Lewis and SNCC were determined to test if the law would be enforced. After the discovery of the bodies of the three missing Freedom Summer volunteers in August of 1964, Lewis and others became more determined than ever to see Black Americans register to vote.

The summer of 1964 proved to be a crucial one with the State Convention of the MFDP to elect delegates to send to Atlantic City, the Republican Convention in Daly City, CA which saw Barry Goldwater elected as the presidential nominee, and the events that rocked the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, including the testimony of Fannie Lou Hamer.

In 1962, Fannie Lou Hamer lost her job, was arrested and beaten for trying to register to vote. She became a part of the SNCC in Mississippi after this. At the Democratic convention, Hamer recounted her attempt to register to vote, in front of of cameras from all the major networks, along with many others including Dr. King. Furious, President Johnson attempted to pre-empt her testimony but this backfired on him. Lewis also describes the struggles of the MFDP at the convention, his eye-opening trip to Africa with Harry Belafonte and his meeting with Malcom X in Kenya, internal struggles within the SNCC including gender equality as more women joined the civil rights movement, Dr. King's Nobel Peace Prize, and the assassination of Malcom X in New York. 

But the fruit of all of Lewis and other activists' unrelenting efforts to obtain the vote for Black Americans culminated in the marches in Alabama, from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Those marches,  known as Bloody Sunday and Turnaround Tuesday, were met with violent opposition by  Mayor Jim Clark and police as well as George Wallace, governor of Alabama. The ensuing violence, broadcast on national networks, seared the conscience of the nation. The actions in Selma led to President Johnson signing into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed the many discriminatory practices occurring the mostly the southern states. The Voting Rights Act enforced the rights given in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment enacted almost one hundred years earlier, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For John Lewis it was the end of one long journey and the beginning of yet another.

Discussion

March Book Three is the conclusion to John Lewis's outstanding graphic novel trilogy about his work in the civil rights movement.

In this final book, Lewis focuses on the determination of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other groups to obtain true equality and participation in American society. They could only achieve this if if they had to right to vote, something that was guaranteed to Black men at least, in 1870. However, the southern states in particular, devised every method to deny this right to Black Americans. 

The Civil Rights Bill had given Black Americans the rights of citizens and Black men were allowed to vote. In fact, Black men not only voted but they ran for office, with twenty-two serving in Congress over a decade. The 15th Amendment banned the restriction of voting rights based on race, colour or having previously been a slave but it also allowed individual states to decide the qualifications for obtaining that privilege. White Americans still controlled policy in the south and they began to enact many different types of qualifications that restricted Blacks from being able to register to vote. Some jurisdictions required literacy tests, or poll taxes.

These restrictions allowed White Americans to effectively control voter registration and eliminate Black Americans from participating in the democratic process. With no say in government, it was impossible to move forward on equality. This would remain the case for almost one hundred years until the civil rights movement in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's. In the end, the Voting Rights Act dramatically increased voter registration and voting turnout in elections among Black and minority communities.

Lewis is frank about the violence he and many others experienced at the hands of  politicians, law enforcement, armed forces and the general public. Peaceful protests were met with brutality and cruelty for black men, women and children, and for any who joined them including people of other races and faiths.  Graphic artist Nate Powell realistically portrays all of this, capturing the violence, some of which resulted in the murders of activists and Black citizens who were part of the protests. The panels showing the deaths of the missing Freedom volunteers and the march from Selma to Montgomery are especially well done. They capture the grief and sense of loss, the determination and courage Lewis and others experienced.

The struggle for equality and the right to vote is juxtaposed with the inauguration of Barack Obama, the first Black president and Lewis's attendance at the inauguration. It is meant to show how far America has come in the last fifty years when a Black American becoming president would have been unthinkable. Nevertheless, the struggle for true equality in America is an ongoing one.

The March trilogy should be required reading for all high school students in both the United States and Canada. To learn the lessons of acceptance, tolerance, equality and learning that all of us are brothers and sisters, we must study the past and learn from it. March allows us to do just that.

John Lewis passed away at the age of 80, in 2020. He was the last surviving member of the "Big Six" civil rights leaders that included Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer.

Book Details:

March Book Three by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions          2016

246 pp.

It All Comes Down To This by Karen English

It All Comes Down To This is a story set in the summer of 1965 in Los Angeles. Sophia LaBranche is a twelve-year-old black girl who lives with her older sister Lily and her father who is a lawyer and her mother who is the director of an art gallery. Their family moved to Montego Drive in the spring. Sophie's family were the first colored family on their block; they were ignored by everyone. But a week after they moved in, Jennifer Abbott knocked on the LaBranche's door, asking to meet Sophie. Despite the fact that Jennifer is a white girl, she and Sophie discovered that they had a lot in common; they both skipped a grade and would soon be thirteen going into grade nine, they loved the Beatles, and they loved to read.

However Sophie begins to discover that life is uncertain for a person of color in their new neighbourhood, something her family's new housekeeper reminds her. Sophie's sister, Lily decides she will apply to work at Marcia Stevens, a boutique store, despite Sophie's skepticism because she's never seen any colored people working at the store. Lily tells her they don't actually know if they won't hired colored.

Sophie tells Lily her own experience a few days prior. Her new friend Jennifer wanted to to swimming at the Baker family's pool. The Bakers are a white family with three girls; Marcy, Deidre, and Jilly. However, when Jennifer and Sophie arrive at the Baker's, Jennifer is told she may swim, but Sophie cannot. Although Sophie encourages Jennifer to stay and swim, she refuses. Instead Jennifer tells the Baker girls they are prejudiced and she and Sophie leave.

As the summer progresses Sophie's life becomes more and more complicated. One afternoon while exploring her father's study, she finds a suspicious letter from an unknown woman, Paula Morrisy. She doesn't read the unopened letter but suspects that her father might be involved with another woman. This is confirmed later while out with Jennifer and her mother, Sophie sees her father in a small coffee shop with another woman, holding hands. Sophie is convinced this woman is Paula.

Sophie and Jennifer discover that the community center will be hosting a play called That Talk. Sophie is determined to win the part of Olivia, while Jennifer wants the part of the villain, Julie. They get copies of the script and begin studying their lines for the audition later in the summer. Meanwhile, Sophie's older sister becomes involved with Nathan Baylor, Mrs. Baylor's son, against the wishes of her mother who believes she is just "toying" with him. However Lily disregards her mother's warning and begins to date Nathan.

Then Sophie's summer is shattered when her mother walks out on her father. This is precipitated by her father's mistress calling their home and her mother discovering a credit card charge for a motel room. Sophie's mother tells her and Lily she is going to stay with Aunt Rose in Elsinore.  Sophie must cope with the stress of her parents marriage crisis, her sister's difficult relationship with Nathan, racial prejudice from her neighbours and community and the rebellion in Watts. It is a summer that forever changes Sophie's perception of her identity.

Discussion

It All Comes Down To This is a novel that brilliantly captures the undercurrent of racial tension between blacks and whites in suburban Los Angeles in the mid-1960's. It is a summer where twelve-year-old Sophie LaBranche comes to the realization that the world is a different place for people who are dark-skinned. Her family is the first "colored family" on their block, suggesting that the neighbourhood is undergoing a gradual change, becoming integrated. The fact that they are ignored and not welcomed suggests that people are not happy to see a black family move in.

English sets the tone of what it was like in 1965 Los Angeles to be a young black girl growing up in a predominantly white community by capturing what Sophie calls "a sneaky kind of hate", small, covert incidents of racial prejudice. This happens when Sophie goes to lunch at Sutton's with Jennifer and her mother after shopping. After their meal when Sophie and Jennifer choose a glitter pen from the restaurant's treasure chest, the hostess accuses Sophie of  taking an extra prize. The hostess tells Mrs. Abbott  who questions why her on why she thinks Sophie stole a pen,
" 'Well,' she said with a smile, as if she and Mrs. Abbott were secret friends, 'You know how they are. They'll steal at the drop of a pin.' " This makes Mrs. Abbott furious.

Sophie discovers an old Jet magazine from 1955 and reads about the horrific murder of Emmett Till by two white men in Mississippi. Sophie is completely overwhelmed by what she reads and attempts to understand this senseless crime. " We didn't live in Mississippi but hate was under the surface everywhere. Wasn't it? Even if it was a sneaky kind of hate. It made people look at me and automatically think they were superior. It made them think I was a thief or maybe I'd do something to their swimming pool."

In Los Angeles in the 1960's it was very common for black men to be pulled over by the police and questioned and patted down. This happens to Lily's boyfriend Nathan in an incident that is both scary and humiliating for him, Lily and Sophie. After checking his identification, patting  him down, handcuffing him and forcing him to sit on the curb, the officer questions Lily, "Just what are you doing with that n*****?" and who Sophie is. They are allowed to leave when Lily who is light-skinned tells the officer Sophie is her sister and that Nathan is NOT a n*****.

Sophie experiences more discrimination when she pays a visit to the community center and finds herself accused of stealing someone's wallet - a wallet that has been missing for some time. Sophie wishes that her friend Jennifer was with her because as a white person she could vouch for Sophie. An unsettling realization begins to dawn on Sophie: "Something really unsettling crossed my mind, then. What if I had to go through this for the rest of my lie? Always, people looking at me -- with suspicion." Sophie recounts to Nathan what happened at the community center and expresses her worry that the woman who accused her of stealing will likely be one of the judges for the auditions. "...she's going to think I'm a thief and not let them pick me." Nathan encourages her to audition anyway. "Always just do things like that anyway."

When the audition goes as Sophie feared - she is never considered a serious candidate - she is discouraged but Mrs. Baylor encourages her to persevere,  "You gonna have to develop a thick skin and don't let nothin' stop you. You keep on pushing and you keep on tryin' and you'll get what you workin' for." In a chapter titled It All Comes Down To This, Sophie realizes all her hard work, memorizing ALL the parts of the play, doesn't matter, because only the colour of her skin mattered.

The turning point of the novel is the Watts Rebellion which begins when a young black motorist, Marquette Frye is pulled over by a white police officer for driving while intoxicated. The growing number of spectators in the predominantly black neighbourhood believe that this is yet another incident of racial prejudice and they begin to fight and scuffle with police. Years of frustration over inadequate city services, poor housing conditions and racism boil over.

This incident, the tumultuous relationship between Lily and Nathan, the arrest of Nathan by the police, her parents' marriage crisis and the pain Sophie experiences over her only friend Jennifer becoming friends with Linda Cruz whose family is prejudiced towards blacks, leads Sophie to realize she is "going to go through a rough lonely patch."

Despite everything, Sophie begins to discover an inner strength. Angry that the television coverage by white people is placing the blame on the black citizens of Watts, that assumptions are made about her by people like Jilly and Deidre Baker, Sophie begins to stand up for herself and in doing so, realizes that she can take care of herself. And things do begin to work out for her; she meets a new girl, Charlotte who is thirteen and like Sophie, new to their school, her father returns home, and Nathan and Lily seem to have worked out some kind of compromise. She learns from Lily's experience with Nathan that "You can't force something to happen. If it's meant to happen,

In what could have been a harsh and heavy subject for a middle grade novel, English is gentle in her portrayal, never getting too dark, yet offering her young readers the opportunity to think a bit deeper on the events she portrays. Besides the characteristic racism Sophie experiences and the Watts Rebellion, there are other aspects to explore. For example, English touches on the colorism that existed within the black community. Sophie's mother doesn't like Lily dating Nathan, because he is dark skinned. Lily is furious because Nathan is attending Berkeley and is a responsible, hard-working person. Sophie recognizes that they have their own prejudice within the black community against darker skinned people. She attempts to explain this to her friend Jennifer. "I didn't want to tell Jennifer the other reason. It felt shameful and embarrassing -- something white people wouldn't understand. But I blurted it out anyway. 'He's dark skinned.' ...It's hard to explain.' It was the kind of thing nobody talked about openly. It felt like I was letting her in on a secret. 'See light-skinned colored people almost always marry light-skinned colored people on purpose. So they'll have light-skinned kids.' "
It All Comes Down To This is a touching story about one girl's struggle to understand the world around her and her place in it. It is historical fiction that provides some background to those interested in the American Civil Rights movement. English drew from her own personal experiences to pen this engaging story.

For more information on the Watts Rebellion of 1965, check out the Civil Rights Digital Library website.

Book Details:

It All Comes Down To This by Karen English
New York: Clarion Books 2017
355 pp.