Run: Book One

by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, L. Fury (Illustrator), Nate Powell (Illustrator)

Overview

RUN, the Eisner Award-Winner for Best Graphic Memoir, is one of the most heralded books of the year including being named a:
New York Times Top 5 YA Books of the Year · Top 10 Great Graphic Novels for Teens (Young Adult Library Services Association) · Washington Post Best Books of the Year · Variety Best Books of the Year · School Library Journal Best Books of the Year · Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year · Amazon Best History Book of 2021 • Top Ten Title of the Year (In the Margins Book Award) · In the Margins Book Award for Nonfiction winner · Top Ten Graphic Novels for Adults (American Library Association) · Best Books for Young Readers (U of Penn Graduate School of Education) · Books All Young Georgians Should Read (Georgia Center for the Book) 

First you march, then you run. From the #1 bestselling, award–winning team behind March comes the first book in their new, groundbreaking graphic novel series, Run: Book One.

“Run recounts the lost history of what too often follows dramatic change—the pushback of those who refuse it and the resistance of those who believe change has not gone far enough. John Lewis’s story has always been a complicated narrative of bravery, loss, and redemption, and Run gives vivid, energetic voice to a chapter of transformation in his young, already extraordinary life.” –Stacey Abrams

“In sharing my story, it is my hope that a new generation will be inspired by Run to actively participate in the democratic process and help build a more perfect Union here in America.” –Congressman John Lewis

The sequel to the #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel series March—the continuation of the life story of John Lewis and the struggles seen across the United States after the Selma voting rights campaign.

To John Lewis, the civil rights movement came to an end with the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. But that was after more than five years as one of the preeminent figures of the movement, leading sit–in protests and fighting segregation on interstate busways as an original Freedom Rider. It was after becoming chairman of SNCC (the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and being the youngest speaker at the March on Washington. It was after helping organize the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the ensuing delegate challenge at the 1964 Democratic National Convention. And after coleading the march from Selma to Montgomery on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” All too often, the depiction of history ends with a great victory. But John Lewis knew that victories are just the beginning. In Run: Book One, John Lewis and longtime collaborator Andrew Aydin reteam with Nate Powell—the award–winning illustrator of the March trilogy—and are joined by L. Fury—making an astonishing graphic novel debut—to tell this often overlooked chapter of civil rights history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683353829
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	08/03/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	295,753
File size:	65 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

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. As SNCC chairman, Lewis was an architect of, and the youngest featured speaker at, the historic 1963 March on Washington, and was a key figure in the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer. Together with Hosea Williams, Lewis led the landmark “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Alabama, where police brutality spurred national outrage and hastened passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lewis is also the author of the award-winning and #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novel memoir series March. John Lewis spends his time between Atlanta, Georgia, and Washington, DC.
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. Collaborating with artist Nate Powell, the first volume of the March trilogy was published in 2013. Aydin has written for comics such as Bitch Planet and X-Files as well as for Teaching Tolerance Magazine, Horn Book Review, and Creative Loafing. He continues to serve as Digital Director & Policy Advisor to Congressman Lewis in Washington, DC.
L. Fury is a lifelong resident of Houston, Texas. After a stint in the gaming industry and then marketing, she shifted her sights to long-form comics, illustrating the unreleased Double Barrel Shogun. Run is Fury’s first graphic novel.

Editorial Reviews

★ 05/31/2021

This worthy successor to the late Congressman Lewis’s March graphic memoir trilogy picks up in the civil rights leader’s life during the 1960s counterculture revolution. The narrative opens where March ended, with the hard-fought passage of the Civil Rights Act. But with these freedoms come fresh challenges and old threats that refuse to die. The Watts Riot breaks out just five days after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, foreshadowing the fraught period to come. As head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Lewis struggles to carry on the peace-based activism of his friend and mentor, Martin Luther King Jr., in the face of waves of white supremacist violence. As militant young Black activists take up the chant of “Black Power!” and ideological divisions tear the SNCC apart, Lewis and his colleague navigate sticky issues like the Vietnam War draft (“Where is the draft for the freedom fight in the United States?”) and the Black separatist movement. “Is America ready to share its abundance with people of color?” Lewis wonders. At the same time, civil rights organizers such as Julian Bond and Marion Barry overcome enormous odds and violent opposition to win elected office, giving the still-young Lewis a glimpse of hope for his own political future. Newcomer Fury takes over capably from March’s artist Powell (who assists on this volume), drawing in a similar fluid, softly shaded style that provides continuity while guiding readers into complex issues. This living history gives faces and voices to the legends of the civil rights era and connects their struggles to the present; the police brutality, voter suppression tactics, and segregationist politics of the 1960s are not so different from those Lewis was still making “good trouble” against at the time of his death in 2020. Lewis’s stunning American story and legacy lives on in these pages. Agent: Jeff Posternak, the Wylie Agency. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

This is a fantastic choice for classrooms… will speak powerfully to anyone trying to make sense of their own values in the face of wider movements and calls to action.

STARRED Review Booklist

Many of the moments in Run speak to related struggles today… Lewis wanted the lessons of the movement to outlive him.

The Washington Post

Run is a startlingly relevant work of art that shines a light on elements of the civil rights movement that do not receive much attention, and shows how the struggle continues even to this day.

ScreenRant

Run puts down a clear marker for future historians that is both true to Lewis’s vision and meticulously researched. Run… shows the experience of Aydin and his team as visual storytellers and the strength of Abrams ComicArts as a “comics-native” literary imprint in supporting this kind of work.

Forbes

The legacy of civil rights icon John Lewis lives on in Run: Book One.

TIME

Run is a worthy successor to March, and in a way, it is almost a more vital work…

Comic Book Resources

There’s a timeliness to Run, a reminder that the efforts to keep prospective voters from casting their ballots that are so much in the headlines these days are nothing new. It turns out the animus that drives so much of our nation’s history is well suited to this form.

The New York Times

It is a powerful account of a pivotal moment… The artful combination of text and images paints a harrowing picture of the violence that continued to rock the movement.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution

"Run is another indispensable chronicle of the life and work of one of 20th-century America’s most exceptional figures, but it’s also a mission statement for the work yet to come.

STARRED Review BookPage

As informative and essential an addition to the nonfiction comic canon as its much-lauded predecessors.

STARRED Review The Horn Book

This worthy successor to the late Congressman Lewis’s March graphic memoir trilogy picks up in the civil rights leader’s life during the 1960s counterculture revolution…This living history gives faces and voices to the legends of the civil rights era and connects their struggles to the present; the police brutality, voter suppression tactics, and segregationist politics of the 1960s are not so different from those Lewis was still making “good trouble” against at the time of his death in 2020. Lewis’s stunning American story and legacy lives on in these pages.”—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review

“This is a fantastic choice for classrooms… will speak powerfully to anyone trying to make sense of their own values in the face of wider movements and calls to action.”—Booklist, STARRED Review

“An intimate, powerfully revealing look at a crucial, complex time, through the eyes of a true American hero.”—Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review

“As informative and essential an addition to the nonfiction comic canon as its much-lauded predecessors.”—The Horn Book, STARRED Review

"Extensive biographical, reference, and artistic notes in the back matter will illuminate casual and student readers alike. Just as powerful as the ‘March’ trilogy, this paean to ‘nonviolent soldiers’ is principled, tragic, and stirring."—School Library Journal, STARRED Review

"Run is another indispensable chronicle of the life and work of one of 20th-century America’s most exceptional figures, but it’s also a mission statement for the work yet to come.”—BookPage, STARRED Review

“There’s a timeliness to Run, a reminder that the efforts to keep prospective voters from casting their ballots that are so much in the headlines these days are nothing new. It turns out the animus that drives so much of our nation’s history is well suited to this form.”—The New York Times

“Many of the moments in Run speak to related struggles today… Lewis wanted the lessons of the movement to outlive him.”—The Washington Post

“The legacy of civil rights icon John Lewis lives on in Run: Book One.”—TIME

“Run puts down a clear marker for future historians that is both true to Lewis’s vision and meticulously researched. Run… shows the experience of Aydin and his team as visual storytellers and the strength of Abrams ComicArts as a “comics-native” literary imprint in supporting this kind of work.”—Forbes

“Run is a startlingly relevant work of art that shines a light on elements of the civil rights movement that do not receive much attention, and shows how the struggle continues even to this day.”—ScreenRant

“It is a powerful account of a pivotal moment… The artful combination of text and images paints a harrowing picture of the violence that continued to rock the movement.”—The Atlanta Journal Constitution

“Run is a worthy successor to March, and in a way, it is almost a more vital work…”—Comic Book Resources

From the Publisher

As informative and essential an addition to the nonfiction comic canon as its much-lauded predecessors.”

STARRED Review The Horn Book Review

This is a fantastic choice for classrooms… will speak powerfully to anyone trying to make sense of their own values in the face of wider movements and calls to action.”

Booklist

08/01/2021

A fourth illustrated civil rights history/memoir by the late congressman John Lewis and the team behind "March," his National Book Award-winning trilogy of graphic novels. The present volume (most pages were finished prior to Lewis's death in 2020) picks up after March: Book Three, in the turbulent era directly following the signing of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It finds a 25-year-old Lewis struggling to retain his chairmanship in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), rife with conflict. Members can't agree on a response to the surge of white supremacist attacks nationwide, or the escalating death toll of the Vietnam War; some are questioning the effectiveness of nonviolence. Lewis's plan to endorse Democratic Party candidates for public office creates further schisms within the SNCC; so does the Georgia state legislature's refusal to seat an elected representative who had endorsed the SNCC's position on Vietnam. When Lewis loses the SNCC chairmanship to Stokely Carmichael, he begins to despair at having worked so hard only to find himself washed-up at 26. He soon regains his determination to continue the civil rights struggle—this time from within the system, by running for office. VERDICT An unsentimental chronicle of a difficult period in United States history and in Lewis's life. Lewis makes clear that creating meaningful change is a contentious, complicated, and, most importantly, continuous process.

Library Journal

★ 09/01/2021

Gr 8 Up—In this follow-up to the acclaimed "March" trilogy, which picks up right after the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Lewis and the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) face one challenge after another. White supremacists, including law enforcement, resist social change and calls for integration. White violence and domestic terrorism target churches, traffic stops, voting booths, and public demonstrations. Apartheid in South Africa and the Vietnam War, along with the draft, add new frontiers to a progressive movement that watches one cold-blooded killing after another take place in the United States without justice. Increased pressure and lackluster results lead to infighting among SNCC's membership, who work to make change from a place of love but become increasingly frustrated and jaded. Lewis is but one committed figure here, as many dedicated Black and white members of SNCC are depicted, including those who opposed Lewis's leadership and continuous calls for integration and nonviolence. Fury and Powell's artwork captures various states of helplessness, from losing an election to staring down the barrel of a gun, while also conveying the determination and anger that Lewis and his peers summoned to keep from quitting. Extensive biographical, reference, and artistic notes in the back matter will illuminate casual and student readers alike. VERDICT Just as powerful as the "March" trilogy, this paean to "nonviolent soldiers" is principled, tragic, and stirring.—Thomas Maluck, Richland Lib., SC

School Library Journal

★ 2021-06-16
A companion to the award-winning, groundbreaking March graphic memoir series, this is the final work completed by Congressman Lewis before his death in July 2020.

What happened after the 1965 marches in Selma? Although segregation was no longer legal, America had not yet embraced true equality. Shortly after the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a six-day uprising took place in the neighborhood of Watts in Los Angeles, with similar protests in Chicago. (Readers will likely note parallels between these events and the 2020 protests.) With welcome frankness, Lewis recounts his tenure as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, being at odds with organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League, the repercussions of SNCC’s public stances against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa, and the generational divide within SNCC. Lewis questioned his own effectiveness as a leader (and was eventually ousted), but his focus throughout the book is on the hundreds of unsung individuals who undertook the sometimes-deadly work that Black voter registration and other grassroots social justice efforts demanded. Compelling art perfectly captures the tension and terror of these troubled times, as told from Lewis’ memory with the backing of scholarly works and research.

An intimate, powerfully revealing look at a crucial, complex time, through the eyes of a true American hero. (biographies, notes, sources, from the artist, about the authors, co-author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 12-adult)

Kirkus Reviews