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This is the second volume of three by Lewis, a significant civil rights leader and member of congress and drawn by Nate Powell, that sort of ramps up the energy and action and emotion and gets us to significant events in civil rights history, told quickly but deftly and with energy and without sugarcoating about what happened. This one focuses on the Freedom Rides, Lewis's incarceration in Mississippi's Parchman Prison, and 1963's March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It ends with the Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and the death of four little girls, memorialized also in Spike Lee's documentray film, Four Little Girls, and many other texts.

For a liberal of a certain age who lived through those times, it is familiar territory, but it is important to know in particular why non-violence was the chosen strategy. I generally think history and biography are not best served by short stories as they are usually packaged for young people. They tend to gloss over the details. And this is, yes, pretty much true of this series, but you get some of the right details, it's not boring, and I think you get in this one what is at the heart of the matter. And you see some of the tensions in the movement, King and Lewis, the staunch pacifists, vs. Stokely Carmichael and Malcolm X. It's sort of breathtaking (and horrifying) what happened just half a century ago, and you get a feel for it in this impressive book/trilogy. Lewis was made to tone down his March on Washington speech in 1963, which he no longer regrets, but an appendix includes the text of his original speech, which is interesting and useful.

I write this within a week of the fiftieth anniversary commemoration of the Selma March, with Sen Lewis as leader then and now. Many of you may have seen the photos of the Obamas and Lewis and others who were there fifty years ago crossing that bridge, so it's timely that the second volume comes out now and it's well worth the read. Powell's art sort of captures the energy and horror of the time. Of course it is a kind of introduction for young people, maybe, who knew nothing of this, who can see some of it now thanks to Powell, and for adults, it's a quick reminder to all that happened then. I'd also recommend longer and deeper versions, such as the documentary film series, Eyes on the Prize and Taylor Branch's Parting the Waters, among so many others, but those two sources are among the best. Still much to be done in this country on race relations. Still massive poverty and crime and brutality and inequality.