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On November 10, 2015, MUSE welcomed Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell to campus to present the keynote address for our Theme Year on Community.

Below is a full recording of the event.

 

As part of each theme year, MUSE selects a centerpiece book to distribute to undergraduate students at no cost to them. For the 2015-16 Theme Year on Community, we have chosen March (Books One and Two) by Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell.

 

March Book Covers

March is a vivid first-hand account of John Lewis’ lifelong struggle for civil and human rights, meditating in the modern age on the distance traveled since the days of Jim Crow and segregation. Rooted in Lewis’ personal story, it also reflects on the highs and lows of the broader civil rights movement. 


#1 New York Times and Washington Post bestseller
A Coretta Scott King Honor Book
Winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award (Special Recognition)
An ALA Notable Book
One of YALSA’s Outstanding Books for the College Bound
One of Reader’s Digest’s Graphic Novels Every Grown-Up Should Read

 


 

“A riveting and beautiful civil-rights story…Lewis’s gripping memoir should be stocked in every school and shelved at every library.”
–The Washington Post

“An astonishingly accomplished graphic memoir that brings to life a vivid portrait of the civil rights era, Lewis’ extraordinary history and accomplishments, and the movement he helped lead…Its power, accessibility and artistry destine it for awards, and a well-deserved place at the pinnacle of the comics canon.”
–NPR

“Brave acts of civil disobedience…[give] March its educational value even as Powell’s drawings give Lewis’s crisp narration an emotional power.”
–The New York Times

“Powell’s drawings in March combine the epic sweep of history with the intimate personal details of memoir, and bring Lewis’s story to life in a way that feels entirely unfamiliar. March is shaping up to be a major work of history and graphic literature.”
–Slate

 

Congressman
John Lewis

Congressman John Lewis is the U.S. Representative for Georgia’s fifth congressional district and an American icon widely known for his role in the civil rights movement. He has participated as a Freedom Rider, which challenged segregation at interstate bus terminals across the South. From 1963 to 1966, Lewis was Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). As head of SNCC, Lewis became a nationally recognized figure, dubbed one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement. At the age of 23, he was an architect and a keynote speaker at the historic March on Washington in August 1963. Lewis was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1986 and represented Georgia’s fifth district there ever since. In 2011 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama. 

Andrew Aydin

Andrew Aydin currently serves as Digital Director & Policy Advisor to Rep. John Lewis in Washington, D.C. Previously, he served as communications director and press secretary during Lewis’ 2008 and 2010 re-election campaigns, as district aide to Rep. John Larson, and as special assistant to Connecticut Lt. Governor Kevin Sullivan. Andrew is a graduate of the Lovett School in Atlanta, Trinity College in Hartford, and Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Nate Powell

Nate Powell is a New York Times best-selling graphic novelist born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1978. He began self-publishing at age 14, and graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2000. His word includes the critically acclaimed Any Empire, Swallow Me Whole (winner of the Eisner Award and Ignatz Award, finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), The Year of the Beasts, The Silence of Our Friends, and Sounds of Your Name. Powell appeared at the United Nations in 2011, discussing his contribution to the fiction anthology What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur alongside some of the word’s foremost writers of young adult fiction.

Last Updated: 5/28/21