March by John Lewis

Title: March
Author: John Lewis
Genre: graphic novel, American history, Southern history, African American history, YA non-fiction, civil rights


** The following was originally posted to a discussion board for my Children's Literature class **

My first YA pick for this week’s post is March by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin. Aside from reading the Archie and Veronica comics as a kid, I can count on one hand the number of graphic novels I have read in my life. It’s one of the few literary genres that doesn’t appeal to me (the others are poetry and short stories), but I decided to give March a shot because a) I have heard rave reviews about it and b) like most things outside of one’s comfort zone, I figured it would be good practice for me to read something in unfamiliar territory. As a librarian, I need to be aware of the various genres (even the ones that are not personally appealing) since I will deal with patrons of various reading levels and reading desires.

Because I am not immersed in the graphic novel world, I was not aware that March was released in three separate volumes, so I would like to thank and applaud our classmate that posted a question about this for clarification. I would also like to thank our professor for allowing us extra time with this module. We were only required to read volume three, but I went ahead and checked out all three volumes from the library because a) I can’t stand reading books out of order (probably due to my Type-A personality) and b) reading all three volumes would let me experience the events in the graphic novels in proper context.

Volume 1 explains John Lewis’ childhood in Alabama, his college years, and how he became involved in local civil rights movements in Nashville. Volume 2 shows how the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) strategically desegregated department store lunch counters, fast food restaurants, cafeterias, and movie theaters. Once these places were successfully desegregated, the SNCC turned its sights on desegregating buses and swimming pools, and revamping employment practices. During this time, Lewis was privy to negotiations with RFK and worked with MLK on various projects. Volume 3 is the most intense of the set: it opens with the Birmingham church bombing that claimed the lives of four little girls. The novel continues with members of the SNCC traveling throughout the South spearheading voter registration drives and marches/stand ins at county courthouses. Sprinkled throughout the various protests and jail times are JFK’s assassination, internal strife with the SNCC and other African American groups, the Civil Rights Act, betrayal at the Democratic National Convention, Lewis’ life changing trip to Africa, Malcolm X’s assassination, and the historic march in Selma.

This graphic novel set was intense, even for me, a grown woman, but I did learn a few things. The march in Selma was a series of marches that had to be repeated due to various legal maneuverings. Also, despite all the hard work in setting up protest lines, marches, and voter registration drives, “By the end of the month, fewer than 60 people had even allowed into the courthouse to attempt to register—and every single one of them was rejected” (Lewis and Aydin, 2016, p.166). My impression was that during these protests and marches some African Americans were successful in registering to vote- only because the federal government made the state government cooperate. I also learned a lot of names that I will need to research later!

The themes in this set of graphic novels are courage, civil rights, American history, African American history, non-violence, equality, perseverance, and justice. Due to the triggering content, I would recommend this book for high schoolers and above (a mature middle schooler might be able to handle it. That’s up to the patron and his or her parent to decide). There are swear words and racial slurs scattered throughout the text (used by the angry mobs in various states against the protestors). There are two to three references to sex, mostly in volume 3, and there is lots of violence, individual violence and state-sanctioned violence. Although most high schoolers are exposed to swearing, sex talk, and, unfortunately, some forms of violence, Horning recommends that a book reviewer “mention potentially controversial elements ‘only if they warrant analysis as an important aspect of the work’” Horning, 2010, 175).

Since I am not an avid graphic novel reader, it’s hard for me to recommend any read-a-likes. I did read the Persepolis graphic novel (and watch the movie) for a world history class during my undergrad degree. Persepolis also deals with injustice, among many other themes. Since I lack in the literary recommendations, I’m also going to recommend an article by the Huffington Post (cited below), that lists six civil rights museums appropriate for children and their families, along with the movies Selma and Malcolm X. I believe these various resources are valuable supplements to one’s education about the Civil Rights movement.

Citations:

Bower, N., Colson, C., DuVernay, A., Gardner, D., Garnes, P., Kleiner, J., McCracken, C., McKeown, D., Morales, N., Pitt, B., Winfrey, O. (Producers), & DuVernay, A. (Director). (2014). Selma [Motion picture]. United States: Harpo Films.

Holmes, P.L., Kilik, J., Lee, S., Murad, A., Ross, M., Sulichin, F., Worth, M. (Producers), & Lee, S. (Director). (1992). Malcolm X [Motion picture]. United States: 40 Acres a Mule Filmworks.

Horning, K.T. (2010). From cover to cover: evaluation and reviewing children’s books. New York: HarperCollins.

Lewis, J. and Aydin, A. (2016). March. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions.

Mahoney, M. (2017, December 6). Six civil rights museums your kids will never forget. Retrieved from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/maura-mahoney/six-civil-rights-museums-_b_9351576.html

Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History

Title: Little Leaders: Bold Women in Black History

Author: Vashti Harrison

Genre: juvenile non-fiction, African American history, women’s history

While my son and I were at the library picking out books for him, I found this little gem in the new books section and checked it out for me since it was calling out to my inner history nerd. Harrison profiles 40 African American women, some well-known (Oprah, Harriet Tubman, etc.) while others were new to me (Julie Dash, Mary Eliza Mahoney, etc.). 

The women profiled are a mixture of living inspiration and historical icons. Each woman profiled has a simplified, one-page biography with language suitable for older elementary and middle school kids. Each biography has a corresponding, full-page, full color illustration. The poses of each woman appear to be based on a template, but this doesn’t mean the illustrations are boring- they are reminiscent of paper dolls and give the book a classy and elegant tone. At the end of the book, the author lists further suggested books, movies, and musical recordings to enhance the reader’s curiosity.

Rebecca Skloot and Writers Weekend

This past week and weekend was a busy one for book lovers in Augusta. Last Thursday night kicked off the 6^th Annual Writers Weekend, which is sponsored by the Department of English and Foreign Languages at Augusta University, and “features award-winning authors and teachers who will lead workshops and share their original creative nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. This unique opportunity enables readers and writers from a variety of backgrounds to connect, collaborate, and create.” (Source: Literaryaugusta.com). Not only was Thursday night the kickoff event for Writers Weekend but it was also the culmination of various events held throughout Augusta to build excitement for the keynote speaker Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. A movie screening of the HBO movie based on the book was shown at Augusta University and the Columbia County Library back in January and Rebecca Skloot and two members of the Lacks family came to town this past week to participate in panels, meet-and-greets, and Q & A sessions at the Columbia County Library, Paine College, and the Imperial Theater.

 Rebecca Skloot is the author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks which was published in 2010 and it took her 10 years to write this book- mostly because she took the time to respect and get to know the various members of the Lacks family. The book is about an African American woman who died in the 1950s from cervical cancer, but her cancer cells (called HeLa cells) lived on and multiplied which had never happened in a lab before. Researchers around the world soon used her cells to study and cure various diseases (polio, for example) and create vaccines. Her cells journeyed to outer space where astronauts could study the effect of space travel on human cells.

 I remember the buzz when the book was released and put it on my To-Be-Read list but for some reason I never got around to reading the book. Well now that Rebecca Skloot was coming to town it was the perfect opportunity. I attended one of the movie screenings and “A Conversation with Rebecca Skloot and Henrietta Lacks’s Family” at the Imperial Theater. Victoria Baptiste (Henrietta’s great-granddaughter) and Shirley Lacks (Henrietta’s daughter-in-law) participated in a panel with Rebecca Skloot that was moderated by local attorney Laverne Lewis Gaskins.

One of the first questions that Ms. Gaskins asked of Victoria Baptiste and Shirley Lacks was to describe Henrietta to the audience. They described Henrietta as a wonderful, giving person who loved people and loved to feed them too! Henrietta also loved to dance, to look good all the time, and she loved to wear red toenail polish. Despite the poverty of the Lacks family she made do with what little she had. Then Ms. Gaskins asked the ladies about Deborah Lacks. Deborah was Henrietta’s daughter and the essential link that Rebecca Skloot needed to find out more about Henrietta and the HeLa cells. Ms. Baptiste and Ms. Lacks described Deborah as witty, loving, a jokester, and spiritual, yet, always yearning to know more about her mom.

Rebecca Skloot first heard about HeLa cells in her school biology class in 1988. The teacher told the class that the HeLa cells were named for Henrietta Lacks and that these cells had never stopped growing and were responsible for much of the medical breakthroughs in the twentieth century. This intrigued Ms. Skloot and after class she asked the biology teacher for more information, but the teacher said there was no more information known about the woman. When she was in college, Ms. Skloot took a General Ed class and one of her assignments was to write about something the world forgot, so she wrote about HeLa cells. While conducting research for this writing assignment Ms. Skloot found out that the HeLa cells were originally attributed to a fake name to give the Lacks family privacy. While Ms. Skloot was in grad school she continued her research on the HeLa cells which led her to make her first phone call to Deborah Lacks in 1999. Deborah was excited yet distrustful of this white lady that wanted to write about her mother, so she kept Ms. Skloot at arm’s length (Deborah and her family had been burned before by other people claiming to write about Henrietta and the HeLa cells). Ms. Skloot originally thought her research and book would just be about Henrietta but the more she found out about how the family was treated (or not treated) by the medical community, the more she realized that her book would be about the whole Lacks family. To gain Deborah’s trust, Ms. Skloot interviewed extended members of the Lacks clan and would tell the stories and tidbits of information about Henrietta through messages left on Deborah’s answering machine. Ms. Skloot told the audience that she had no journalism background when conducting this research, so she had no preconceived ideas or training about conducting interviews or journalistic research methods. Ms. Skloot said that journalists usually only ask questions and don’t allow their sources to ask questions of them; Ms. Skloot did the opposite and the Lacks family slowly learned to trust her.

So right now you’re probably wondering what the big deal is about these HeLa cells and why was the Lacks family so distrustful of journalists? Henrietta’s biopsy was conducted before informed consent was standard in medical procedures. The doctors at John Hopkins used Henrietta’s cells in research without her knowledge or permission and the surviving family members were never notified or asked for consent either. The Lacks family also was never financially compensated even though their matriarch’s cells saved and improved millions of lives around the globe. John Hopkins researchers contacted the Lacks family in the 1970s and conducted more tests and took more tissue samples without being fully honest about what they were researching and how the test and tissues samples and results were going to be used. (At the panel Ms. Skloot told the audience that informed consent laws were established by the 1970s but not codified at the time that John Hopkins researchers were collecting samples from the Lacks family).

During the panel Ms. Baptiste and Ms. Lacks stressed the importance and ethics of informed consent about cell and tissue research in the medical community: “If you have to ask me permission to use, then you know it belongs to me” (Ms. Baptiste) and “If I’m alive, then you need permission because it’s part of me and belongs to me” (Ms. Lacks).

Racial disparities and attitudes in healthcare were also discussed at the panel. In the 1950s racial segregation in Baltimore determined where Henrietta could seek out and receive medical care. John Hopkins was the only hospital in the area that accepted poor, African American patients. Ms. Baptiste and Ms. Lacks also suspect that race played a part in Henrietta’s pain management while she in John Hopkins recovering from surgery and radiation treatments. Ms. Baptiste currently works in the medical field and sees discrimination against patients of color almost daily. She told the audience, “You can’t change the mentality of people despite protocols and regulations.” (When I was in the book signing line, a lady in front of me told Ms. Baptiste that her Haitian husband is treated differently than she is whenever he goes to a medical appointment and this woman suspects this differential treatment is because of the color of his skin and his accent).Ms. Skloot admitted to the audience that she grew up in the racially-sheltered Pacific Northwest; she thought racism was gone in this country and she didn’t experience the realities of race until working with the Lacks family. She was told, “You’re going to get access to things a black writer wouldn’t.” She still didn’t believe this until she questioned an older white doctor who had conducted testing on the Lacks family and referred to them as “those people.”

John Hopkins has not formally apologized to the Lacks family- according to the hospital lawyers it would be an admission of guilt. John Hopkins does honor Henrietta Lacks every year and Shirley Lacks’ husband told her that it “warms my heart to see these people learn about and acknowledge my mom.” In 2013, there was more controversy when German scientists sequenced the genome of HeLa cells and released the genetic information online. Some of the Lacks family was concerned that their genetic information would be viewable by the public while other family members were curious and hopeful that sequencing the HeLa genome could benefit the world.

Ms. Skloot told me she loved my tabs; I then told her, "Well, you're going to love where my cat chewed the corner of your book because he was mad that I wasn't feeding him."

On a semi-lighter note…

Actress Karyn Parsons headlined the opening session of the Writers Weekend event on Saturday. (Karyn Parsons played Hilary Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air TV show). Ms. Parsons was invited to Writers Weekend to promote her non-profit company Sweet Blackberry. The idea for Sweet Blackberry began when Ms. Parsons was pregnant with her first child and realized that she would need to supplement her daughter’s education regarding African American contributions to the world. The same stories are taught over and over, and schools don’t have the resources to update or supplement their materials. Ms. Parsons admitted to the audience that she hated history as a kid; it was presented as a series of dates in a very abstract way and not as a series of stories that were relatable to her. Sweet Blackberry aims to change that by presenting children with stories of historical figures on their level. Right now, these stories are presented as short films that can be purchased through the Sweet Blackberry website or viewed on Netflix. Film narrations have been provided by Alfre Woodard, Queen Latifah, and Chris Rock (with Laurence Fishburne narrating on an upcoming film on Bessie Coleman!). Future goals for the organization include book publishing, TV series, apps, an interactive kids’ section on the website, and the website itself as a resource for African American historical figures.

The second session I attended at Writers Weekend was “A Reading with Tony Grooms” who read “Uncle Beasley’s Courtship” from his short story collection Trouble No More (also available through the Kennesaw Digital Commons) and three passages from his new novel The Vain Conversation. Mr. Grooms’ novel was in the works for 25 years (!!) and was inspired by a 1991 AJC article about the 1946 Moore’s Ford, double lynching in Walton County (you can read a recent update here: http://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional/moore-ford-lynching-years-long-probe-yields-suspects-but-justice/J5QYgAcuQoTIRta5AVeS5L/). Mr. Grooms told the audience that his novel is a story that asks questions about redemption and is an analogy about race relations in the US (“there has been no closure”).

Black and Blue

Title: Black and Blue: Inside the Divide Between the Police and Black America
Author: Jeff Pegues
Genre: nonfiction, American history, racism, civil rights, African American history

**This review has been adapted from a book review I wrote for my Anthropology and Pop Culture class**

            The beating of Rodney King was one of the most infamous police brutality cases of the twentieth century. Police brutality cases involving African American men appear to be on the rise in recent years- between 2014 and 2017, Laquan McDonald, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, Keith Lamont Scott, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Walter Scott, Philando Castile, and Terrence Crutcher died during police interactions or while in police custody. Jeff Pegues, in Black and Blue: Inside the Divide Between the Police and Black America, brings to light why police brutality is once again making headlines throughout America: the roots of racism in police brutality, the lack of accountability in policing, and the need for reconciliation between the police and the African American community.

            The first theme that Pegues tackles in his book is accountability. Members of the police and African American communities were interviewed by Pegues about their thoughts on police accountability. Both sides agreed that police need to be held accountable and punished when they overstep their bounds but each side measured that accountability in different ways. Achieving accountability was on the minds of many Chicagoans after the police shooting death of Laquan McDonald in 2014. After the shooting, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) originally released a statement that the shooting was justified after McDonald had acted in an aggressive manner; when the video was released to the public thirteen months later, the video revealed that “Van Dyke fired the first sixteen shots, and Laquan McDonald was leaning away from the officer. The CPD’s so-called code of silence had been exposed along with other systemic problems going back decades” (Pegues 2017:63).

            What is the “code of silence’? It depends on whom Pegues interviewed. Mayor Rahm Emanuel described the code of silence as “the tendency to ignore. It is the tendency to deny. It is the tendency [to] in some cases cover up the bad action of a colleague or colleagues” (Pegues 2017:46). Dean Angelo, a CPD veteran and president of the Fraternal Order of Police claims the thin blue line “keeps the beast from the door” and is “the line of separation between the good and the bad” (Pegues 2017:54). To Angelo the code of silence is not covering a colleague’s bad behavior but “listening, not talking. Learn by observing, learn by hearing” (Pegues 2017: 190). The police view the thin blue line and the code of silence as the noble concepts of protection and duty while the African American community views it as an “oppressive force” (Pegues 2017:50) of corruption.

            In response to the Laqaun McDonald shooting the CPD established the Police Accountability Task Force to “actively seek out, listen, and respond to voices all over this city” (Pegues 2017:63). The Police Accountability Task Force would also be responsible for the thousands of abuse complaints that are lodged against the CPD every year: “From 2011 to 2015, 40 percent of complaints against police officers were not investigated” (Pegues 2017:114). The Task Force also recommended the creation of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability- this agency would have “greater power to investigate alleged police abuse and the use of deadly force…offer recommended changes to both police policy and procedure” (Pegues 2017:222); Unfortunately, the civilian task force was a voter-based ordinance which was struck down by voters, especially voters in white neighborhoods that contained police residents.

            The rejection of the civilian-led accountability agency by white Chicagoans sheds light on a dirty secret within the police community (and the second theme of this book): the infiltration of white supremacists in the law enforcement community. Some of this infiltration manifests itself in obvious ways and sometimes racial bias within in police ranks is more insidious. In our class lecture, we learned that some Los Angeles police officers hailed originally from Mississippi and they brought their racial biases with them to California. These LAPD officers were known to cruise African American neighborhoods for the sole purpose of stirring up trouble by yelling racial epithets and acronyms from their police cruisers (Trunzo class lecture, September 5, 2017). Liberal San Francisco was no better in their viewpoints towards African Americans- one police precinct in an African American neighborhood was known to have a picture of a KKK grand wizard displayed on a public bulletin board (Trunzo class lecture, September 5, 2017).

            An example of insidious racial bias within law enforcement is the controversial “stop and frisk” policies initiated by the New York Police Department that were later adopted throughout the country. The original purpose of stop and frisk was crime prevention: “officers were encouraged to stop and question pedestrians and then frisk them for weapons” (Pegues 2017:26) but complaints and statistics show that this policy was abused by cops with racial motives and usually only enforced in minority communities. For example, in Baltimore stop and frisk was “concentrated in predominantly African American neighborhoods and often lacked reasonable suspicion” (Pegues 2017:22) and

BPD searched African Americans more frequently during pedestrian and vehicle stops, even though searches of African Americans were less likely to discover contraband. Indeed, BPD officers found contraband twice as often when searching white individuals compared to African Americans during vehicle stops and 50 percent more often during pedestrian stops (Pegues 2017:23).

On paper, this aggressive form of law enforcement appeared to lower crime but there were other repercussions: the breakup of families, job loss, increased prison populations, and the temptation by police departments to turn stop and frisk into a source of revenue.

            The final theme in Black and Blue is reconciliation which is repeatedly mentioned in the book by Pegues and by many of his interview subjects. Pegues recognizes that reconciliation will be a long process and hard work for both sides of the thin blue line. Pegues recommends a multi-step reconciliation process: acknowledgement, expungement of bad cops, sessions of open dialogue, and the establishment of positive interactions between civilians and the police.

            “This divide in the United States between law enforcement and black Americans shows that our country is still grappling with a troubled past when it comes to race” (Pegues 2017:99). The “troubled past” this quote refers to are the slave patrols in the colonial and antebellum periods of U.S. history and the Jim Crow laws “which set different rules for blacks and whites…based on the theory of white supremacy” (Pegues 2017:100). Because of hundreds of years of oppressive regulations, laws, and policing techniques, the African American community not only distrusts most police departments but has also had to resort self-protection because they knew help would not be available outside their community. Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) points out that acknowledgment of racial bias must also include racism within the police ranks, not just racism between police officers and the community (208).

            The cliché “one bad apple spoils the bunch” is also symbolic about bad cops who ruin the reputation of their own police department and the entire law enforcement community. The Chicago Police Data Project found that police officers “with 10 or more complaints- make up about 10% of the force but receive 30% of all complaints” (Pegues 2017:229). Another way to root out bad cops is the prevention of bad hires in the first place. Various entities quoted within this book mentioned that hiring standards for police officers needed to be increased: stricter psychological testing, increased salaries for police officers, and continuous training which includes: “bias awareness, crisis intervention, mental health issues, interpersonal and communication skills” (Pegues 2017:135) just to name a few, and police departments need to acknowledge that not every police academy candidate is mentally capable be a police officer. Local government officials also need to view police as “critical infrastructure… If we don’t invest in our infrastructure, what happens? It breaks down” (Pegues 2017:133). Finally, Pegues believes there must be civil, open dialogue between the police and the local African American community to build trust with one another. This tenuous trust must be sustained through continuous positive interactions between African Americans and law enforcement.