It’s more interesting than may be assumed, as responsibility at an early age imbued a sense of pride and love during a time when he took his first steps into biblical study. Fourteen pages, for instance, are occupied by Lewis’ recollections of life as a four year old raising chickens on his parents’ farm in rural Alabama.

March, extending over three volumes, doesn’t just focus on 1963, but is a more complete autobiographical memoir of Lewis’ early years, co-authored by his policy advisor Andrew Aydin. Attracting over a million people, this was the largest ever protest organised in the USA, and the occasion at which Martin Luther King delivered his most famous speech.

Georgia’s representative is a lifelong civil rights campaigner, an activist since his student days, and was crucially involved in organising 1963’s March on Washington. But fractures within the movement are deepening … even as 25-year-old John Lewis prepares to risk everything in a historic showdown high above the Alabama river, in a town called Selma.The initial promotion for March focussed heavily on the writer being US Congressman John Lewis, a lofty convert to the concept of graphic novels, yet Lewis has always been a man of vision ahead of his time. With these new struggles come new allies, new opponents, and an unpredictable new president who might be both at once. To carry out their nonviolent revolution, Lewis and an army of young activists launch a series of innovative campaigns, including the Freedom Vote, Mississippi Freedom Summer, and an all-out battle for the soul of the Democratic Party waged live on national television.

The only hope for lasting change is to give voice to the millions of Americans silenced by voter suppression: “One Man, One Vote.” Through relentless direct action, SNCC continues to force the nation to confront its own blatant injustice, but for every step forward, the danger grows more intense: Jim Crow strikes back through legal tricks, intimidation, violence, and death. By the fall of 1963, the Civil Rights Movement has penetrated deep into the American consciousness, and as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, John Lewis is guiding the tip of the spear.

John lewis graphic novel