First you march
Then you run
The story of John Lewis continues
From the bestselling, award-winning authors John Lewis and Andrew Aydin comes their next groundbreaking graphic novel--Run: Book One--illustrated by rising star Afua Richardson and featuring contributions by Nate Powell.
Told in multiple parts, Run is the next chapter of John Lewis' involvement in the civil rights movement and public life after the March saga. The books bring to the page the true story of John Lewis and many of his colleagues in the movement after the historic success of the Selma campaign. Opening two days after the Voting Rights Act was signed into law, John Lewis and his colleagues are arrested and taken to jail in Americus, Georgia, as the largest hooded Klan march in years takes shape on the courthouse steps.
Run: Book One takes readers through the behind-the-scenes struggle to exercise the hard-won rights of people of color to register, vote, and secure equal representation in their elected leaders, all the while facing escalating tensions over continued American involvement in Vietnam.
About the Authors
Congressman John Lewis is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and is the US Representative for Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District. An American icon known for his role in the civil rights movement, Lewis first joined the movement as a seminary student in Nashville, organizing sit-ins and participating in the first Freedom Ride, which challenged illegal segregation at bus stations across the South. He soon became the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and one of the “Big Six” national leaders of the movement, alongside such figures as Martin Luther King Jr. and A. Philip Randolph.
Andrew Aydin is the creator and co-author of the graphic novel memoir series, March. An Atlanta native, Andrew was raised by a single mother and grew up reading comic books. In 2008, Congressman Lewis mentioned to Andrew the 1957 comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story and the role it played in the early days of the civil rights movement. Recognizing the potential for a comic on Congressman Lewis’s life to inspire young people, Andrew urged him to write a comic about his time in the movement, but Congressman Lewis had one condition: that Andrew write it with him.
Afua Richardson is the illustrator of the Readers’ Choice Award–winning, politically potent miniseries Genius by Marc Bernardin and Adam Freeman. Other works include Black Panther: World of Wakanda, X-Men ’92, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and many others. In the spirit of the Nina Simone Award she received for Artistic Excellence, Richardson has been aptly called a “Jane of All Trades.” She lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Nate Powell is a New York Times bestselling, award-winning graphic novelist. His work includes March, Rick Riordan’s The Lost Hero, and Come Again. Powell is the first and only cartoonist to win the National Book Award. He lives in Indiana.
