Category: john lewis

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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 … Read More History, Comics, and the Civil Rights Movement

Conversation with Tim Smyth about “March”

Over the course of this semester, I’ve posted conversations I’ve had with authors such as Kiku Hughes and Lila Quintero Weaver, along with scholars such as Michael Dando, Jennifer Morrison, and Eir-Anne Edgar for my Multicultural American Literature course. Today, I want to share the discussion I had with educator Tim Smyth about John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell’s March: Book Two. Tim … Read More Conversation with Tim Smyth about “March”

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The Emotions in the Gutter

Recently, a colleague asked me to participate in a reading with him. He read selection from his latest poetry collection, and during the Q&A following our readings, he spoke about the ways that he constructed some of the poems he read. During his response, he began to speak about a poem he didn’t read, “Nocturne,” a poem which deals with death, intimacy, and loss. … Read More The Emotions in the Gutter

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“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

“The ill-conceived protests cannot be presented with the sensible way of presenting a grievance.” Where did this quote come from? It came, slightly altered, from a 1963 newspaper article condemning the March on Washington For Jobs and Freedom, the event where Martin Luther King, Jr delivered his famous “I Have A Dream Speech.” You know, the one where he says that he dreams that … Read More “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

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“You must do something”: The Violence of Silence

On the day of his funeral, The New York Times and the Atlanta Journal Constitution published John Lewis’ final message. In it, Lewis spoke about his life, his work during the Civil Rights Movement, the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless others, and about the hope for the future, the hope had in the generation today speaking up and marching for equity. … Read More “You must do something”: The Violence of Silence