Lessons in Graphic Nonfiction: John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell's March Trilogy and Civil Rights Pedagogy

Abstract

Playing into the master narrative of the US civil rights movement, John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell's March trilogy negotiates not only the movement's tactics and achievements, but also its initial mediation through photography and television and its ongoing remediation. Taking the memoir's urge to teach as a starting point, this article assesses its didactic impulses and implications, combining a historiographic approach with an assessment of the narrative's visual construction. The article highlights the trilogy's potentials and shortcomings as an intervention into civil rights memory and outlines a metacritical pedagogy through which March can become potent classroom material.