In the 1950s, comic books starring heroic Black characters were rare.
There was, briefly, a jungle comic book (Jungle Tales) co-starring Waku, Prince of the Bantu, in a series of 6-page stories for it’s 7-issue run:
And there was a famous EC science fiction story, Judgment Day, in which a central character is in an astronaut’s suit throughout the story, so his bodily features are invisible, but in the last panel he removes his helmet and the reader can see he is Black:
That was largely it for heroic portrayals of Blacks in the ‘50s — at least as far as regular newsstand comics went.
But there was a very noteworthy non-newsstand comic book, and it’s a comic book which deserves to be spotlighted.
Some of you may be familiar with John Lewis’ 3-volume series The March, which tells in graphic novel form the story of Lewis’ involvement in the civil rights movement. But Lewis was inspired to tell that story in comic book form by a comic book he read back in the ‘50s.
Andrew Aydin, who helped John Lewis write The March, wrote a good article 5 years ago about the role a 1957 comic book played in inspiring the creation of their modern-day graphic novel series:
I first heard about the civil rights-era comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story from Congressman John Lewis in the spring of 2008. I had been working for him less than a year when I was driving him to an event and we got to talking about comic books. I remember Lewis sitting in the front passenger seat as he gently teased me about attending Atlanta’s comic convention Dragon Con. But then he said, “You know, there was a comic book during the movement. It was very influential.” I was captivated. Could a comic book have played a role in the Civil Rights Movement? If so, how? Could we do it again?
As I came to learn, the story of Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story is tightly tied to the Civil Rights Movement’s early days. The true breadth of its history, of who made the comic book and what role it played, has been largely overlooked. Yet, it is a powerful example of an unconventional idea serving as an extraordinary source of inspiration.
The comic tells the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which successfully helped integrate that city’s public transportation. To say that the idea to produce a comic book about civil rights in 1957 was a radical idea would be to understate the overwhelmingly negative attitudes toward comic books at the time…
Publishing a comic book like Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was remarkable in and of itself considering the times and the popular attitudes toward comic books. But perhaps the more remarkable story is that of what happened after the comic book was published...
The comic book was published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, an interfaith group committed to working non-violently for peace and social justice. It was smaller than a regular comic book (only 16 pages, as opposed to 32 pages) and featured a 9 page story about the Montgomery bus boycott starring Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, a 2-page story “Martin Luther King Tells How How a Nation Won Its Freedom By the Montgomery Method”, and a 5-page narrative “How the Montgomery Method Works”.
It was a remarkable comic. As Aydin says:
To me, the history of Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was more than a series of facts and anecdotes to be collected and recounted; it was a call to action. Our time on this planet is short, and it is what we do with that time that defines our societies’ futures. Each and every one of us has something unique to contribute, if we are willing to do the work. By luck, by chance, or perhaps by the spirit of history, I found myself working for Lewis, learning his story of how America was changed forever. When I learned about Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask Lewis if he would write the next chapter and bring his story of the Civil Rights Movement to comics. His answer changed my life.
But there’s more to the story.
Brian Cronin does a regular feature, Comic Book Legends Revealed, which examines some of the things people think they know about comics and determines whether those things are true or false. (For instance, did you know that Lex Luthor is based on Donald Trump? It’s true!)
Recently Cronin did a story about how the 1957 comic book about MLK and the Montgomery bus boycott inspired the 1960 Greensboro Sit-Ins. Drawing on what Aydin wrote, Cronin quotes Aydin:
In January of 1960, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story found its way to Greensboro, N.C., and into the hands of 18-year-old North Carolina A&T State University student Ezell Blair. After reading it, Blair decided to show it to his roommate, Joseph McNeil. Blair and McNeil had been in contact with local civil rights activists but, as the story goes, it was when McNeil finished reading the comic book that he made a decision of historic importance, declaring, “Let’s have a boycott!”
Cronin then picks up the story from there:
In February of that year, the men, soon to be known as the Greensboro Four, decided to do a sit-in at the local Woolworths, which had a “whites only” lunch counter. They each ordered a cup of coffee and when they were each refused service, they refused to leave.
They inspired more activists to do the same and soon, boycotts spread through the South at other Woolworths and any other store that had segregated lunch counters.
After many months, the Greensboro Woolworths finally relented and integrated.
And it was all inspired by a comic book!
I highly recommend both Aydin’s article and Cronin’s column.
Ah, you say, those are probably interesting, but I’d rather read the comic itself!
Well, then, you’re in luck. Because the comic has been reprinted, both on paper and online. The paper copy is available from Top Shelf Productions for $5; they have a digital version available for $2 (same link as above) with all proceeds going to the FOR; and because the original comic is now in public domain there is also a complete pdf reproduction of the comic available free from King Encyclopedia.
It’s well worth reading and well worth remembering.
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