MARCH: Book One by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell

Today's post is part one of a three-part series. Why is that? Well, because there are three volumes to MARCH, the story of John Lewis's life as a young activist.

The entire series has a framing device: the story itself starts on January 20, 2009: Barack Obama's first inauguration day.

We are with an older John Lewis as he gets up and heads to his office prior to the inauguration, where he interacts with people--including a mother who brings her kids by just to see his office and is shocked to actually meet Congressman Lewis. The rest of John Lewis's story, including his childhood, his growing activism, his acquaintance with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge where John Lewis was badly beaten while peacefully protesting, is told in a series of flashbacks.

Below is a spread featuring the mother and her sons, Jacob and Esau, there to see Mr. Lewis's office.

Here, John Lewis attends his first non-violent protest workshop at the First Baptist Church in Downtown Nashville, Tennessee, where he meets and receives training from a young divinity student named Jim Lawson:

The protestors trained with eventually begin lunch counter protests, which involved them quietly taking seats at the lunch counters of local diners, which were reserved for whites only. Eventually, they succeeded in gaining the right to eat at the lunch counter in Nashville, but not before being beaten, taunted, humiliated, and even arrested.

Book One ends with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "No lie can live forever. Let us not despair. The universe is with us. Walk together, children. Don't get weary."