Run (Group 2)
Run by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, L. Fury, Nate Powell
Reviewed by Jenny Delgado, Izzy Galasso, Marisa Estrada, Erin Brennan, Canan Fraser
Review:
John Lewis and Andrew Aydin’s Run: Book One firsthand projects the mass incarceration and racial discrimination African Americans suffered after the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This often overlooked year of history depicts Lewis’s leadership in his third year as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and the accounts of countless members from the organization, who willingly expose their wounds to expose the prejudice and injustice still prominent in America today. The graphic novel explores the different ideologies within the Civil Rights movement, ranging from Lewis’ and King’s activism for nonviolent growth, expansion, and freedom of the African American community, to militant Black Power and violence in response to racial injustice during a period of war and segregation. However, while America fights a war internationally, the country’s inner war demands a future of restored justice.
The purpose of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was to signify an end to discrimination against African American rights, yet it realistically secured the motivation behind white supremacy. Whether initiating peaceful marches, such as protesting voting segregation in Lowndes County, or responding violently to acts of police brutality, such as the Watts Riots, African Americans suffered attacks and violations against the written law which issued no halt to white supremacy. Additionally, the ignorance and injustice directed toward African Americans challenges the security of their safety in response to the police. Lewis and Aydin’s collaboration with Fury and Powell aggressively yet perfectly depicts a multi-timeline narrative, where comparing the brutalities of the 1960s to the unsolved injustices of today exposes the denial of American equality and excessive community uplift during a movement where oppression and discrimination destroy humanity. The graphic novel expertly addresses all forms of social reform in exploring the accounts of both political leaders and organizations, the challenges shadowing their success, and a complicated relationship between the American demographic and a critical landscape of the changing political system.
While the characters in the graphic novel gradually failed to exercise an interest in organized, nonviolent events and respect to political leaders with opposing ideologies within their community, they serve as a foil to John Lewis’ reserved demeanor while he gracefully educates on the devastating national events responding to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Lewis emphasizes various examples of segregation through personal experiences both he and his staff members, as well as members of other organizations, lived. From worship segregation in Americus, Georgia, merely two days after initiating the Voting Rights Act, to the death of Sammy Younge simply over exercising his rights, Lewis’ milestone political events sincerely reflect the prolonged history of prejudice and discrimination which the SNCC, SCLC, and smaller, solo, more exclusive communities suffered. The escalating Vietnam War and African American draft to fight for America forces Lewis to advocate for the security of freedom of other minorities internationally, as the deceptive United States government continues to both deny protection of rights granted by law and ignore expressing concern in this injustice. In just one year, every account of assault, felony, and murder from Georgia to Alabama overlooked by the government and the enduring aggression and resistance projected by African Americans inspires all of history that if marching isn’t enough, learn to run.
Biographies:
Image: John Lewis
Source: https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/john-lewisJohn Lewis (1940-2020)
John Lewis is a civil rights activist, a congressman of Georgia, and a teacher. He was born February 21, 1940, in rural Alabama. Lewis’s parents were sharecroppers who worked on a farm picking cotton for landlords. Growing up, Lewis helped his parents on the farm, but his dreams were to become a pastor. However, his path changed early on by inspiring activists, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. While attending American Baptist Theological Seminary, he joined the Nashville Student Movement. Eventually, Lewis started activating with the Freedom Riders, where they protested segregated bus terminals. Lewis, along with activist James Bevel and Amelia Boynton, came together in 1965 to lead more than 600 people on a march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama (which is 50 and a half miles) to fight for voting rights. Lewis’s strong sense of activism eventually led him to be elected to the Atlanta City Council in 1981. Years later, in 1986, Lewis began a 30-year career as a Member of Congress, where he served as a U.S. Representative of Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District. In all, Lewis was the soul of the Civil Rights Movement. He dedicated his life to fighting tirelessly for social justice and against racial discrimination.
Andrew Aydin
Andrew Aydin is a Turkish American writer from Atlanta who was raised by a single mother and found comfort in comic books as a kid. He never imagined that his childhood love for comics would one day lead him to co-author March and Run with Congressman John Lewis - graphic novels that bring the Civil Rights Movement to life for young readers. Inspired by Lewis’s fight for justice, Aydin realized that comics could be a powerful way to teach young people about painful parts of history.
He believes that the bold visuals and emotional storytelling in comic-style books make hard topics easier to understand and harder to forget. His work uses art and truth to help teens connect with the past in a meaningful way. Aydin also co-founded Good Trouble Productions to keep telling true stories that matter. Through writing, school visits, and public talks, he encourages youth to use their voices for change.
What we can take from Aydin’s journey is that personal passions can become powerful tools for impact. He shows how storytelling - especially through comics - can inspire action, bring history to life, and help shape a more just future.
L. Fury
L. Fury is a comics artist and illustrator based in Houston, Texas. Run: Book One was her powerful debut into the world of graphic novels, where her artwork helped tell the next chapter of the Civil Rights Movement. Before working in comics, she studied animation and earned a BFA in 2010. She spent years creating indie games and cartoons, eventually becoming an art director.
Her bold and expressive style is shaped by the things she loved growing up—like Moebius, Studio Ghibli, retro anime, and early 2000s Nickelodeon shows. These influences give her art a unique voice that feels both personal and powerful.
In Run, she worked alongside Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell to continue the story of March. Through her illustrations, she brought out the emotions, courage, and struggles of those who fought for justice, making history feel real and alive for young readers.
What we can take from Fury’s journey is that personal passions - from childhood favorites to professional skills - can shape powerful storytelling. Her work reminds us that art isn't just about images - it’s about heart, memory, and connection.
Image: Nate Powell
Source: https://arktimes.com/news/cover-stories/2017/01/05/the-incredible-adventures-of-nate-powell
Nate Powell
Nate Powell is a National Book Award-winning cartoonist from Little Rock, Arkansas. Born July 31, 1978, he quickly started self-publishing comics at the age of 14. Powell is the first cartoonist ever to win the National Book Award. He has also been awarded with the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, multiple Eisner and Ignatz Awards, ALA and YALSA distinctions, the Comic-Con International Inkpot Award, and the CXC Transformative Work Award. He had also collaborated with Lewis on the three-book series, March.
While Powell grew up in a military family during the Cold War, it was not until he was 11 when he read X-Men did he had a good grasp of social conscience. Powell has been shaped by punk music (he was a part of punk rock bands from 1990-2002), and the politics and social perspective that comes with that. He started using his art to activate and bring awareness to social issues.
Image: John Lewis leading a march in Tennessee
Instructional Resources:
1. Creative Ways to Use Graphic Novels in the Classroom:
This is a YouTube video, for teachers only, that’s a resource to help teachers find engaging ways to teach students using graphic novels. They explain how it benefits even the most reluctant readers to want to read because a graphic novel is so engaging. It’s video for teachers by teachers.
2. A Guide to Using Graphic Novels With Children and Teens : This is a guide from the Scholastics website that breaks down the positive aspects of teaching graphic novels to children and teens. It provides a guide to help educators on how to have students interact with the graphic novels in the classroom with both discussions and classroom activities.
3. John Lewis and RUN! : This is a YouTube video of an interview with one of the authors Andrew Aydin after John Lewis’s passing. Andrew explains his connection with Congressman John Lewis, and how Run came to be the story that it is.
4. Freedom Riders (2010) : This is the documentary on the Freedom Riders that is discussed in Run. This could be a helpful tool to show students the risks and type of protesting that can be done to challenge authority and laws that take away human rights.
5. Letter from Birmingham Jail : A letter written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. while imprisoned in Birmingham, Alabama, for leading nonviolent protests with the purpose of honoring fair laws while violating unjust ones. King claims how freedom must be demanded from the oppressor, yet only in a nonviolent and peaceful manner.
6. Black Power Speech : This almost ten minute audio clip of a speech made by Stokely Carmichael exposes America’s corrupt system of institutions and the injustice behind African-led integration attempts. Carmichael advocates for the destruction of white supremacy, ushering meetings with political leaders to get them “out of the way” and form organizations to benefit the community without the help of the government.
7. Black Panthers : A four and a half minute clip introducing the origins of the Black Panther party, who advocated in utilizing violence in response to police brutality. The Oakland, California organization policed the police by forming programs to support the community and open-carry guns, challenging both American laws and the duty of police officers in protecting the African American community.
8. Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles): A short article depicting the story of Marquette Frye and the events following his unjust death which are now known as the Watts Riots. The article includes a statement from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who exposes the violent and aggressive intentions behind the riots and its misdirected motivation for national justice over self-fulfillment.
9. SNCC: What We Did : A strong, detailed account of the social injustice African American students in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee faced and the sense of agency initiated in response, from the point of view of Julian Bond. SNCC’s overview was controlled by a conniving battle against the Democratic leaders and their denial of any social change for African Americans.
10. How the Black Panther Party Was Organized - Speech by John Hulet : A personal account of John Hulet’s experience facing voter registration discrimination in Lowndes County, Alabama, and the forming of the Black Panther Party in response to the injustice. Hulet introduces more specific examples of prejudice, ranging from a restriction on the practice of exercising first amendment rights to being evicted from homes and torn from families, to exemplify the threat the Lowndes County Freedom Organization posed to the American government.
Image: John Lewis Freedom Riders
Source: https://breachofpeace.com/blog/?p=1431Image: John Lewis & Barack Obama
Instructional Activity:
Grade Level: 11-12
Subject: History
Duration: 3 class periods (60 minutes each)
Preview:
The purpose of this assignment is to encourage students to think about how historical events are represented differently on different media platforms or from different perspectives. Students will be able to read and analyze different points of view of the same historical period and reflect on how those differences do or don’t affect the public’s ideas of historical events.
California Common Core Standards:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.2
Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary that makes clear the relationships among the key details and ideas.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6
Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.9
Integrate information from diverse sources, both primary and secondary, into a coherent understanding of an idea or event, noting discrepancies among sources.
Resources and Preparation:
Copy of Run by John Lewis
Historical Article about the Civil Rights Movement
Worksheets
Instructional Plan:
PREPARATION:
Assign Run by John Lewis as an independent reading assignment (preferably over a couple of days or a weekend).
DAY 1:
Reconvene as a class to discuss the graphic novel.
Give a historical background of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.
DAY 2:
Assign the article, “Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events, & Leaders,” as an in-class reading assignment. Break students into 5 (or more) groups and have students annotate their assigned section of the article (section assignments are as follows).
Group One Sections: Jim Crow Laws, World War II and Civil Rights
Group Two Sections: Rosa Parks, Little Rock Nine, Civil Rights Act of 1957
Group Three Sections: Sit-In at Woolworth’s Lunch Counter, Freedom Riders
Group Four Sections: March on Washington, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Bloody Sunday
Group Five Sections: Voting Rights Act of 1965, Civil Rights Leaders Assassination, Fair Housing Act of 1968
Assign the worksheets to students to fill in the Summarize and Analyze sections independently.
DAY 3:
Discuss the similarities and differences between the representations of the Civil Rights movement.
Image: Ralph Abernathy, James Forman, Martin Luther King Jr., Jesse Douglas, and John Lewis. K marching for voting rights 1965
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/02/john-lewis-martin-luther-king-jr/552581/Bibliography:
“Black Panthers.” YouTube, YouTube, 1 May 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZlnZCpXfpQ.
Bond, Julian. “SNCC: What We Did.” SNCC Legacy Project - The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Legacy Project, 12 Oct. 2022, sncclegacyproject.org/sncc-what-we-did/.
“Civil Rights Movement: Timeline, Key Events & Leaders.” History.Com, A&E Television Networks, 8 Apr. 2025, www.history.com/articles/civil-rights-movement.
“Creative Ways to Use Graphic Novels in the Classroom.” YouTube, 7 May 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIWOc4isGLU. Accessed 6 May 2025.
“Freedom Riders (2010).” YouTube, YouTube, 22 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKuj--AlyxM.
Hulet, John. “How the Black Panther Party Was Organized .” Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- How the Black Panther Party Was Organized, May 1966, www.crmvet.org/info/hulet1.htm.
“John Lewis and RUN!” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Feb. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRH0ZMsh1Kg.
“Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Bill of Rights Institute, 16 Apr. 1963, billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/letter-from-birmingham-jail.
“Stokely Carmichael - Black Power Speech 1966 (1_7).Mp4.” YouTube, YouTube, 31 Jan. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv9fyyAnIOQ.
“Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles).” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/watts-rebellion-los-angeles. Accessed 1 May 2025.
