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Decades in print, key civil rights comic goes digital
[November 21, 2013] PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The comic book used to teach and inspire civil rights proponents and activists in the 1950s and 1960s is being released digitally amid increased interest in its role in the movement.
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Top Shelf Comix said Wednesday that "Martin
Luther King and The Montgomery Story" was scanned using the
original files from the 16-page comic first published in 1958 by
the Nyack, N.Y.-Fellowship of Reconciliation. It's being sold
digitally through Comixology, as well as through Amazon for the
Kindle, in Apple's iBookstore and on other platforms. Its influence was noted by U.S. Rep. John Lewis who said reading
it helped galvanize his involvement. "It was very inspiring ... and when I attended the nonviolence
workshops in Nashville at a local church, we all had an
opportunity to get a copy of this book we called the 'comic
book,'" he told The Associated Press in August. "We were able to
digest the essence of the book as we studied and participated in
those nonviolence workshops." Andrew Aydin, who co-wrote Lewis' graphic novel autobiography
"March: Book One," said the comic was used in FOR-run workshops
and recalled its impetus ahead of protests in Greensboro, N.C.,
in February 1960. "There are several historical citations that tell the story of
Ezell Blair getting a copy, reading it, then showing it to his
roommate Joseph McNeil," he said in an email. "When McNeil read
it, he insisted to Blair that they stage their own nonviolent
protest." Their actions are credited for beginning a sit-in movement
across the south in a bid for equal rights. Top Shelf Comix spokesman Leigh Walton said the publisher's work
with FOR and "'The Montgomery Story' is a natural response to
the success of 'March: Book One.' It's a way not only to
demonstrate the roots of the March project, but also to 'pay it
forward,' so that this influential part of history is not
forgotten, and can keep changing lives." ___ Online: [Associated Press; MATT MOORE] Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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