During the Egyptian revolution in 2011, a 50-year-old comic book was at the forefront after U.S. Rep. John Lewis said on MSNBC that "over 200,000 copies have been translated into Arabic and distributed through Egypt."
The comic book referenced by the late Lewis was “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story,” a 1957 comic published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation that told the story of King, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Andrew Aydin, a former staffer of Rep. Lewis and author of “MARCH and RUN,” a graphic memoir series on Lewis’ life, wrote about first learning of the comic’s existence from Lewis in 2008. “You know, there was a comic book during the movement. It was very influential,” Lewis told Aydin after teasing him about attending Comic-Con.
Aydin wrote a history of the comic book, the first complete example ever published, as his graduate thesis at Georgetown University in 2012. In the thesis, detailed reports of the comic book’s production are revealed, including Dr. King’s personal involvement in the form of proposed changes in letters to FOR’s Director of Publications, Alfred Hassler, who is credited with spearheading the comic’s publication.
The comic was funded by a $5,000 grant and is believed to have been printed in the range of 250,000 copies total.
Only a couple dozen original examples remain today, with one having sold for $2,500 just last month on eBay. In 2014, Top Shelf Productions and Aydin released a reprinting of the comic book.
“Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story is a powerful example of comics’ capacity for good,” Aydin told Previews World.
“As we reassess our values in literature, as comics and graphic novels become increasingly commonplace in our schools, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story is an important milestone on the journey to how we got to where we are today.”
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.