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.

Stones On A Grave by Kathy Kacer

Stones On A Grave is part of a series of seven books authored by various Canadian writers for young teens. The series, known as the Secrets, can be read in any order. An orphanage, known as The Benevolent Home For Necessitous Girls burns to the ground in June of 1964, leaving all its residents homeless. The younger girls are sent to various families, but the seven oldest girls, Dot, Malou, Sara, Tess, Cady, Toni and Betty are each given information about their past and told they must now make their own way in the world. Their stories are the basis for the seven novels in the series.

Stones On A Grave tells Sara's story. It begins the night of the terrible fire at the orphanage in the town of Hope. Sarah and the rest of the girls who live there make it safely out of the fire. Sara manages to grab her tin box holding her savings. Their matron, Mrs. Hazelton and their teacher, Miss Webster also make it out. The girls are taken to the church where they are told by Miss Webster that because the fire has totally destroyed the orphanage, no one will be able to return and that plans are being made to help each of the girls. The girls spend the night sleeping on the pews of the town church.

The next morning Sara, who is the oldest of the girls at eighteen, decides to go to her job at Loretta's, a diner where she's worked for the past few years. Normally Loretta's wouldn't be open on a Sunday but the owner, Mrs. Clifford has opened the restaurant to those who helped with the fire. When she sees Sara, Mrs. Clifford is shocked and tells her she can manage fine if she needs to take some time off. However Sara wants to work as it keeps her from worrying about what the future holds for her.

Sara's boyfriend Luke comes to the diner. Sara met him a few months ago when she went to the garage where he works to put air in her bicycle tires. Luke noticing her that day made Sara feel special. Mrs. Clifford doesn't like Luke however and questions him about whether he was involved in the orphanage fire. She also tells him she heard that he's been harassing Malou, one of the seven older girls at the orphanage. Luke denies this and Sara refuses to believe what Mrs. Clifford has said, but when Malou arrives at the diner, he ridicules her in front of Sara.

After work Sara goes to see Mrs. Hazelton at her cottage near the orphanage. Each of the girls has come to meet privately with her and Sara is anxious, wondering what Mrs. Hazelton will tell her. Mrs. Hazelton hands Sara two envelopes; the first contains a document from the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation that lists information about her birth. Sara learns that she was born in Fohrenwald, Germany, that her mother's name is Karen Frankel and that she is Jewish. Mrs. Hazelton tells Sara that Fohrenwald was a camp for Jewish refugees who survived the Holocaust. She tells Sara that her mother was imprisoned in a concentration camp which was liberated at the end of the war. Her mother contracted tuberculosis which was passed on the Sara. The second document is a medical certificate clearing Sara for travel to Canada and was signed by Gunther Pearlman, a German doctor. Mrs. Hazelton has no information on Sara's father nor how Sara ended up coming to Canada. However, she wants to help Sara as she starts her new life and gives her an envelope containing money to help her get started.

This new information and her conversation with Mrs. Hazelton make Sara realize that in order to face her future she needs to discover her past. And to do that she needs to travel to Germany. It is a journey that will uncover her past and help her plot her course for the future.

Discussion

Stones on a Grave is a well written, high interest, easy read for those who enjoy historical fiction and mystery. The novel is set in the mid-1960's and explores the aftermath of the Holocaust on Germans and those who survived the war. When Sara arrives in Germany she finds Dr. Pearlman initially helpful until she reveals her identity and tells him about her mother. The doctor becomes angry and refuses any further help. Kacer portrays a country struggling to come to terms with what happened and determined to try to forget. The older characters, for example Dr. Pearlman and Frau Klein, who lived through the war, do not want to talk about what happened and do not wish to remember. However, Peter, who represents a new generation of Jewish Germans becomes determined to help Sara uncover her family history. Frustrated at the lack of help she is receiving from Germans, Sara wonders Peter also attempts to explain to Sara the question many people asked themselves after the war, "How could the German people not know what was going on?"

At times some of the plot twists seem contrived, such as when Hedda Kaufmann decides against the rules to help Sara and also when by amazing coincidence she knew Sara's mother. Readers will probably quickly realize the real identity of Gunther Pearlman and also how Sara's mother became pregnant. One aspect of this novel that is particularly well done is Kacer's treatment of the war crime of rape and how it can affect the family of the victim.  Sara learns from Frau Kauffman at the International Tracing Center that her father was not her mother's husband, Simon Frankel but a Nazi soldier who raped her mother in the concentration camp. When Sara first learns this fact about herself, she is very distraught. She flees the center, her mind racing with questions. "How was it that she had traveled all this way to find out about her family only to discover that her father -- her father -- was a Nazi guard? What did that even mean? Was she part Nazi? And what part had come from him? The anger? The irritation? The blue eyes? It was almost too much to imagine."  Sara believes that this is why her mother gave her up, that looking at her meant remembering the rape. Sara decides to leave Germany immediately, regretting seeking out her past.The next day while waiting for Peter, Sara tells Dr. Pearlman that she discovered the truth about her past and that her mother "...must have thought I was a monster."

When Dr. Pearlman, who is Sara's grandfather, realizes how this tragedy is affecting his granddaughter, he decides to reveal the truth to her. He tells her that in fact, while "We were all afraid to look at you, knowing where and how you were conceived" her mother gazed at her with "pure love." "Those first few days after she was hospitalized, she wouldn't let you go. She held on to you as if together you could give each other strength to heal. Even as she grew weaker and we tried to pry you from her arms she still refused to let you go..."  The realization that her mother truly loved her helps Sara come to terms with the fact that she was born from an act of violence and to begin to accept that she is NOT her father. A moving letter from Frau Kauffman about her mother, makes Sara understand that there is much of her mother in her. Like her mother she is spirited and like her mother she dreams of becoming a fashion designer. Frau Kauffman's entreaty that she take what little she knows about her mother and be inspired pushes Sara past her anger and grief towards acceptance.

"Everything was becoming clearer to her. Yes, she would carry the man who had raped her mother somewhere inside her. Every time she looked into a mirror, stared at her blue eyes, she would be reminded of her roots. But she knew now that she was not him, and never would be. She would live her life trying to prove that."

Kacer does incorporate some interesting historical facts into her story. One example is Bad Arolsen, a town in northern Germany where documents from the war have been stored in a special center. Bad Arolsen is the location of the International Tracing Service which was begun in 1946 after the war to locate missing people and reunite them with their families and to let others know the fate of their loved ones. The Nazis kept detailed records of who was sent where. The names of Jews, what concentration camp they were sent to, how and when they died, or if they survived what displaced persons camp they were sent to was recorded in an effort to reunite survivors. Its vast archives were only made available to the public in 2007.   The English website may be found at International Tracing Service.

The book takes its title Stones on a Grave from the Jewish custom of placing stones on a grave.This ancient tradition is explained by Peter as follows: "Well, flowers disappear quickly. The belief is that stones last forever, just like the memory you hold of the one who has died."

Overall Stones on a Grave is a touching story about a young woman who learns the truth about her past and her struggle to come to terms with it. Part of the Secrets series conceived by Eric Walters, this novel is a good read for younger teens. It's unfortunate the cover design, like many good Canadian novels, is unimaginative at best.

Book Details:

Stones on a Grave by Kathy Kacer
Victoria: Orca Book Publishers      2015
213 pp.