History, Comics, and the Civil Rights Movement

This semester, I am teaching two Civil Rights era memoirs: Lila Quintero Weaver’s Darkroom: A Memoir in Black and White and John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell’s March Trilogy. I thoroughly enjoy these texts, and I enjoy teaching them. However, as I reread them, I keep thinking about what the texts don’t cover. I understand that each of these works are focused on the experiences of individuals, Weaver and Lewis respectively. As such, they cannot cover every aspect of the movement. As well, they both work to add to the cultural narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, a narrative that differs from the extensive historical record one would encounter within a classroom or in scholarly texts focused on the movement. Yet, the more I learn and read, the more I think about small moments here and there where a broader fleshing out of some things could occur. Within the realm of graphic memoirs, though, this becomes hard, especially consider the production of such texts. Today, I want to look at a couple of moments, specifically in March, where I wanted to see more. In this manner, March and Darkroom serve as a springboard for broader, lengthier discussions and inquiry in the classroom.