Ratings7
Average rating4
RUN, the Eisner Award-Winner for Best Graphic Memoir, is one of the most heralded books of the year including being named a: New York Times Top 5 YA Books of the Year · Top 10 Great Graphic Novels for Teens (Young Adult Library Services Association) · Washington Post Best Books of the Year · Variety Best Books of the Year · School Library Journal Best Books of the Year · Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year · Amazon Best History Book of 2021 • Top Ten Title of the Year (In the Margins Book Award) · In the Margins Book Award for Nonfiction winner · Top Ten Graphic Novels for Adults (American Library Association) · Best Books for Young Readers (U of Penn Graduate School of Education) · Books All Young Georgians Should Read (Georgia Center for the Book) First you march, then you run. From the #1 bestselling, award–winning team behind March comes the first book in their new, groundbreaking graphic novel series, Run: Book One. “Run recounts the lost history of what too often follows dramatic change—the pushback of those who refuse it and the resistance of those who believe change has not gone far enough. John Lewis’s story has always been a complicated narrative of bravery, loss, and redemption, and Run gives vivid, energetic voice to a chapter of transformation in his young, already extraordinary life.” –Stacey Abrams “In sharing my story, it is my hope that a new generation will be inspired by Run to actively participate in the democratic process and help build a more perfect Union here in America.” –Congressman John Lewis The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March—the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign. To John Lewis, the civil rights movement came to an end with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But that was after more than five years as one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit–in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. It was after becoming chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and being the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. It was after helping organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the ensuing delegate challenge at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And after coleading the march from Selma to Montgomery on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” All too often, the depiction of history ends with a great victory. But John Lewis knew that victories are just the beginning. In Run: Book One, John Lewis and longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Powell—the award–winning illustrator of the March trilogy—and are joined by L. Fury—making an astonishing graphic novel debut—to tell this often overlooked chapter of civil rights history.
Series
1 primary bookRun is a 1-book series first released in 2021 with contributions by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin.
Reviews with the most likes.
It's more of a three, but as I read I imagined it being used as a class material and scored it as that.It was dense and a little confusing in places. At times I had to linger over some faces and ask is this a white or black person being portrayed, so the art was less than stellar, I don't recall having any quibbles with the [b:March: Book One 17346698 March Book One (March, #1) John Lewis https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1360539808l/17346698.SX50.jpg 24086771] series. There's a lot to cover so I forgive some of the meandering as I had to remind myself that this was from the perspective of John Lewis. I thought the history of the Black Panther Party -originally LCFO, Lowndes County Freedom Organization- was interesting and appreciated that comic books were also used at the time to help people of varying literacy gain information.
Artwork is amazing. Story barely gets going before the book is over and I'm weirdly upset by it cause now John Lewis is dead and I wanted to hear about his career in federal US politics. I'm sure they'll do a volume 2 but its not the same.
This is, necessarily, a different and more painful series than March. For starters, we're now living in a world without John Lewis. Then there's the story arc: March ended on a triumphant note, the passing of the Voting Rights Act, huzzah. Unfortunately, the VRA did not immediately vanquish intolerance and injustice in the USA.
Run chronicles the slog ahead: new ways to intimidate and disenfranchise Black voters and candidates; the conviction and sentencing of white terrorists for murdering – oops, my mistake: I meant the continued murder of Blacks with total impunity; and the growing schism in the SNCC, between the nonviolents and those espousing aggression, leading to Lewis's ouster from his (til then) lifelong path. Book One covers 1965-1966, and I'm worried that at some point they might get to 1968, which was not a good year.
Two panels halfway through serve as a sobering reminder of how far we've come:
The number of polling places was reduced, making it almost impossible for poor voters–without access to cars–to cast a ballot. And many of the polling places were moved to new locations.
Summary: A follow-up to the March Trilogy, taking up John Lewis' story from 1964 until 1967.
I am a huge fan of the March Trilogy, a graphic novel trilogy that tells the early years of John Lewis' life, framed as him remembering his early life at Obama's Inauguration. The graphic novel format I think is particularly suited to the Civil Rights era history because the era's evocativeness is part of its importance. It is one thing to read a narrative history about Civil Rights era marches, it is something else to see images of those marches with a mix of dialogue and narrative. There is a reason that the March Trilogy was the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer.
In some ways, the history of the early years of the Civil Rights movement, Brown v Board in 1954 until Selma in 1965 is a simpler narrative. There was a righteous cause and while there was not universal agreement (civil disobedience was very controversial), once it was completed, the history has a clear narrative story of right and wrong. Post-1965 the narrative is much more nuanced and complicated. Pre-1965, the Civil Rights movement was largely focused on legal segregation and voting rights. Post-1965, the Civil Rights movement had less clear objectives. The Vietnam War and its disparate impact on minority communities, especially poor minority communities, and global solidarity with colonized communities around the world became the focus of some activists. Other activists tried to focus on poverty across racial lines. Other activists, especially women, began to focus on what we now call intersectionality and how different forms of discrimination overlap and act differently, and how the early Civil Rights era leadership had largely had a public male face with women doing significant parts of the organizing but were excluded from leadership.
This post-1965 era requires a much more nuanced story that we are still grappling with as a society. The current discussions over Critical Race Theory are not discussed in the book, but CRT arose because the legal changes as a result of pre-1965 work, did not result in significant cultural changes. In a 1981 interview, political consultant Lee Atwater famously discussed the rise of less overt appeals to race as a motivating factor for engaging white voters. Derrick Bell and others lawyers that contributed to the rise of Critical Race Theory knew that a law simply saying that discrimination on the basis of race being illegal did not mean that discrimination did not occur. And once there was a shift as a result of the 1976 Washington vs Davis case which required proof of intent to discriminate, a very high bar, more covert discrimination became not only normal but more insidious because it worked with the cultural concept of color blindness to prevent race from being openly discussed. The concept of a colorblind constitution or colorblind legal theory was used to oppose efforts to address historic racial discrimination.
Back to the book Run, much of the story of this first book in what I believe will be another trilogy is setting up the tension of the post-1965 civil rights era. John Lewis opposed the more militant Black Power methodology of Stokely Carmichael. Instead, he was interested in working through political systems and with an integrated civil rights movement to bring about cultural change. Lewis opposed the Vietnam War as did MLK and many others. But having a similar political opinion did not mean that there was an agreement about what to do to address the shared political opinion.
The March Trilogy was mostly a hero story. John Lewis was only 23 when he spoke at the March on Washington, yet already he was a veteran organizer and leader. At the end of the first book of the Run series, John Lewis had been voted out as head of SNCC, did not have a job, was nearly broke, and was seeking a new role and methodology to fulfill his calling. Jon Meacham's recent biography of Lewis strongly captures how much of a calling that Lewis had to the civil rights movement, but Run is just getting started with that story.
As I was writing this, I looked at Amazon and realized that I pre-ordered Run just over 3 years ago. As far as I know, the next book in the series has not been announced. John Lewis was involved in the writing of this book before he passed away in 2020. But he will not be involved in future books beyond the early charting of them.
One of the features that I very much appreciated about Run is the series of short biographies at the end of the book. There are about 20 pages of summary descriptions of the characters of Run. Each of these is about a paragraph, so there is not a lot of detail, but the context is helpful. There is also a narrative description of the history that is graphically told in the main part of the book. And a section by the illustrator that describes the process of completing the book. The original March Trilogy was illustrated by Nate Powell. But he was not free to work on this one and it was illustrated by L Fury. The illustration retains a similar feel even if it is not the same as Powell's work.
There is always a frustration in reading graphic novels that are produced serially, without the next volumes being complete. But if Run doesn't find an audience, the remaining books will not be writing and illustrated. I really appreciate the more complicated nuanced story. It is not as action-oriented, but it is honest and truthful to the history. And that is what we need.