From USA TODAY…
Rep. John Lewis to write graphic novel on civil rights
By Catalina Camia, USA TODAY
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., has inked a deal to help write a graphic novel about his experience during the 1960s civil rights movement.
As a young man, Lewis was beaten in Selma, Ala., on the day in 1965 that has become known as Bloody Sunday. Marchers were on their way from Selma to Montgomery when Lewis and others were beaten by Alabama state troopers on the Edmund Pettus bridge.
Top Shelf Productions will publish the novel, called March, in 2012. Top Shelf, a graphic novel and comics publisher, said the agreement with Lewis is a first for a sitting member of Congress.
“It is not just a story of struggle; it is a story of involvement,” Lewis said in a statement posted on Top Shelf’s website. “It shows the ups, the downs, the ins and the outs of a movement.”
Putting Lewis’ story in the form of a comic book will help educate a new generation about the struggle for civil rights, said publisher Chris Staros.
Lewis, 70, was first elected to Congress in 1986. Later this month, he is slated to receive a Medal of Freedom—the nation’s highest civilian honor—from President Obama.
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