On a sunny, sterling Saturday afternoon that sent most Portlanders onto the waterfront and sidewalks, Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., packed the Pearl Room at Powell's Books, drawing standing ovations at both ends of a presentation on "March," the first volume of his autobiography.
U.S. Rep. John Lewis brought his glorious voice and his graphic novel, "March," to Powell's Books Saturday.
Lewis, 73, is the former head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, a coalition of black and white activists who rode interstate buses from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans in May 1961 to challenge segregation laws in the Deep South.
A 21-year-old seminary student at the time, Lewis
when he and a white Freedom Rider entered a "Whites Only" waiting room at the Greyhound bus station.
That was the way of things on the front lines of the battle for civil rights, Lewis said, a battle in which he was pledged to nonviolence.
"We'd be at stand-ins or sit-ins and someone would spit on us, put a burning cigarette down the back of our shirts or pour hot chocolate on us," Lewis said.
"It was testing me. It was good trouble. Necessary trouble. I think it's time again for another generation of Americans to get in trouble. Good trouble."
"March: Book One" was published last August by Portland-based Top Shelf Productions.
, Lewis was encouraged to write the graphic novel by one his aides, Andrew Aydin.
Lewis was receptive to the idea of telling his story in graphic form, Aydin said, because he remembered how influential another comic book -- "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story," published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation" -- was in the Civil Rights' movement.
"March" is
, whose best work, "Swallow Me Whole," is
.
Lewis grew up outside Troy, Alabama, on a 110-acre farm on which his parents raised peanuts, hogs, cows and chickens. "I know you're smart. Powell's Books is here," Lewis said Saturday. "But do you know anything about raising chickens?"
John Lewis signs a copy of his graphic novel for Emma Rosen, a junior at Cleveland High School
Lewis said he bonded with those on the family farm when he began working on his preaching technique. If his cousins would hang back when he quoted Scripture, the chickens would gather 'round. Sometimes they would nod in agreement, Lewis said. Sometimes the hens would shake their heads.
"But they never said, 'Amen.'"
He was inspired to seek a more discerning audience, Lewis said, by the courage of Rosa Parks and the preaching of Martin Luther King Jr. He took the reins of SNCC in 1963, and was in the thick of the voter registration drives during Freedom Summer. Since he was elected to Congress in 1986, Lewis added, he has been arrested five more times in the ongoing struggle for peace and equity.
And on a sterling Saturday afternoon, a packed house at Powell's Books said "Amen" to that.
-- Steve Duin