Run: Book One

 Run: Book One by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin with art by Nate Powell and L. Fury (2021) 152 pages

This continues in the same style as John Lewis' graphic trilogy March, which I enjoyed. Well researched and intensely dramatic. Covers the three years John Lewis was chairman of SNCC, but the book is not just concerned with SNCC business. The coverage of events is broadly about the changes in the Civil Rights Movement during the mid-60s.

The Silence of Our Friends

 The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long and Jim Demonakos with art by Nate Powell (2012) 201 pages

This is semi-autobiographical based on events that occurred in Houston, TX in 1968. Author Mark Long's father was a television reporter who observed the pushback to SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) organizing Civil Rights protests on Texas Southern University campus. An organizer of the protests, Larry Thompson, his family, and all the African American community in the poorer Wards of Houston face regular racism from the white community. A brutal police response to a protest and a court case provide the climactic events to this conflict. Visually I really appreciate the design of the panels and speech bubbles on each page, the dramatic motion is strongly conveyed.

Colored

Colored: The unsung life of Claudette Colvin by Emilie Plateau, 136 pgs.

This is the story of Claudette Colvin who predated Rosa Parks by several months refusing to move from her seat on the bus. The NAACP and the WCA did get her our of jail and she was interested in pursuing a lawsuit but the "movement" thought she was not a strong representative for the cause. Instead, she was pretty much abandoned although called to testify later during he lawsuit that went to the supreme court. She was very young, 15, and ended up pregnant out of wedlock so found herself forgotten as a figure in the civil rights movement. I too, had not heard her name. After the lawsuit, she could not find work and ended up being part of the great migration, moving north and living out her life in anonymity.

The Secret Lives of Bees

The Secret Lives of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (2002) 302 pages

Fourteen year old Lily Owens lives in South Carolina with her often-angry father who owns a peach farm. She is cared for by Rosaleen, one of her father's employees. It's 1964 and when Lily accompanies Rosaleen to register to vote (now that the Civil Rights Act has passed), Rosaleen ends up beaten and arrested when she returns insults of racists by pouring the contents of her snuff jug on their shoes. Lily and Rosaleen hitchhike to Tiburon, SC, a city that Lily found written on the back of a picture that used to belong to Lily's mother, who died when Lily was four. The two are taken in by three sisters who live in a bright pink house and who raise bees. In order to earn their keep, Lily learns the art of beekeeping while Rosaleen helps with the cooking. August, the oldest of the sisters, encourages Lily to tell her story, knowing that Lily lied about who she and Rosaleen were, where they were from and where they were going. Lily resists, even as she feels drawn to August. Lily's biggest secret is her guilt over her mother's death. This is a moving coming-of-age story, with relevant quotes about bees at the start of each chapter.

Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge / Flannery O'Connor, 269 pages

Wow. 

This is a collection of stories that O'Connor was working on when she died of lupus at the age of 39, in 1964.  How to describe them?  The protagonists are often horrible people who experience brief opportunities to grow.  Generally, they do not take advantage of these opportunities.  They or others die hideously violent deaths in surprise twist endings.  (I may have blunted the surprise a little - sorry.)

O'Connor is considered great by many people who know a lot more than I do, but I struggled to love these stories.  They are nearly perfectly crafted and one reads them quickly, even easily.  They are frequently extremely funny, and I will concede that O'Connor was an extraordinary observer.  As awful as the people in her stories are, they feel organic and strangely believable.  But she pulls no punches whatsoever when it comes to describing racial attitudes in the '60s south, and reading much of the (realistic) dialogue made me feel nauseated.  If she was too honest about her time and place, that's no failing.  But I was glad to turn the last page.