**Transcript has been edited for print**
Link to comic:http://www.crmvet.org/docs/ms_for_comic.pdf
Link to podcast:https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ewKUsxqFV5cF9EWmRaWVBuNnM/view?usp=sharing
Jessica
Hello. Welcome. My name is Jessica Baldanzi and I’m here for a special issue on graphic novels and comics for the Journal for the Center of Mennonite Writing. I am an associate professor of English here at Goshen College and I’m here with two awesome guests to talk about the comic book Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story. Would you like to introduce yourselves?
Regina
Hi, I’m Regina Shands Stoltzfus. I also teach at Goshen College in the Peace Justice Conflict Studies department, and I’m excited to be here.
Anne
I’m Anne Berry. I teach visual communication design at the University of Notre Dame, but I’m a Goshen college alum and previously taught at Goshen College, and I’m excited to be here as well.
Jessica
Welcome. It’s really good to be here. We are here at the Mennonite Historical Library on Goshen College’s campus and we have one copy. We had multiple copies a while ago but we currently have one copy of the original. This is a comic that is available a lot of places online now, and they reissued a hard copy, but it is really cool to see an actual hard copy and touch it and know that this – we’re touching it right now but you can’t see us – it’s just really cool to know that this was part of the Civil Rights movement. This comic came out in 19 – there are a few dates flying around: 1957, 1958, I’ve seen one 1956, and I need to do a little bit more research, I’ll put it in the introduction as to when exactly this first came out. But it’s really awesome to see it right here on Goshen College’s campus. And we don’t know a lot about how it got here. We do know that there were some people at Goshen College who actually went down and participated in the freedom rides, but I don’t know much more about it than that. We don’t even have an actual name to attach this copy to. But I don’t know if you all want to start by just reflecting on what it’s like to see this here, and then we want to get into a deeper conversation about the role of visual arts in social justice and nonviolence.
Regina
I would just say that it is really amazing to have part of the historical record of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Civil Rights Movement in this form. I read comic books when I was a kid, and I tended to read the scary adventure ones, and the funny ones, and really didn’t have a sense of this kind of thing happening. And of course, there’s a specific reason that this exists, but it’s just really nice to see that people were paying attention in this way to mark this moment in history.
Anne
I would agree with that. I also grew up reading comic books, but certainly nothing like this, and I think that the fact that we have a copy here at Goshen College is really important and speaks to – I would say, some of the priorities of the institution. So I think that sends a positive message as well.
Jessica
It’s complicated, too, though, right?
Anne
Oh yes.
Jessica
I mean, this was a sundown town. It’s really complicated …
Regina
And also Mennonites – and other people – had a complicated relationship with the Civil Rights Movement, with the tactics and strategies, particularly of Dr. King: his being influenced by Gandhi, which is recorded in this comic book – and this big question for Mennonites and Mennonite theologians of “So, what do we do with boycotting?” for instance. Boycotting is coercive, and so does that fit in with our peacemaking strategy or does it not? And a lot of people were saying actually it doesn’t.
Jessica
Should we talk super briefly about the history of [Goshen] as a sundown town, and about Martin Luther King?
Anne
That might be helpful context. Well, I’m connected to this sundown town resolution – the recent sundown town resolution – because that was something my dad and Dan Shenk worked on. My Dad, Leroy Berry, and Dan Shenk worked on together. It was Dan Shenk who did a lot of research about Goshen’s history as a sundown town. My understanding is that it wasn’t something that was written down in the books, but it was certainly a cultural reflection of the cultural context – that if you’re a black person living in this town, you don’t want to be out after dark. And so I think that – but I should also mention that I’m on the Community Relations Commission, and so I joined actually when the sundown town resolution came up for a vote, right before it happened with city council.
Jessica
What year was that, do you remember, approximately?
Anne
You mean when the resolution was …?
Jessica
When it came up for …
Anne
This was just last year.
Jessica
Insane …
Anne
I know, right?
Regina
And it is interesting to think about that, because I think a lot of people are here in 2016 and they think about this history as something really really really long ago, but what you just said, Anne, about knowing, as a black person, you’re not supposed to be out in the town … when I was a student here in the early 80’s, I knew that. Like, I knew that. And that’s not terribly long ago.
Anne
No, absolutely. So what was interesting being on the CRC was being able to participate in some of these conversations about the resolution. Because when you read the resolution, it makes sense – it’s basically, “This is how Goshen was, and we don’t reflect those values anymore, we want to be something better, we want to maintain something better,” but yet there was still a lot of controversy over this, because I don’t think the full language of the resolution was out there for people to read, so there were a lot of assumptions about what this resolution meant, and of course many people feel, “I’m not racist, and Goshen’s not a racist town, so why are we even bothering to do this?” And I actually missed the city council meeting where this came up for an official vote, so I just kind of read about it and heard about it from other people, but based on what I heard, it was really powerful for people who are familiar with Goshen but don’t live here – or maybe they had lived here – to talk about their feelings about being here, like what that meant, that that actually maybe got through to some people. [They were saying things like,] “I never felt comfortable here, I never felt safe here,” to bring home the reality, so that you can’t just say, “This is ridiculous. Why are we bothering to do this?” But James Loewen, [author of Lies My Teacher Told Me,] his visit right before was also really important, I think, in helping people who are interested in this topic to understand the context of why [it happened. He] referred to it as the nadir – that period in the 1920’s and 30’s where you had a lot of lynchings that would go on without people being held accountable. So, the climate that that creates is obviously quite bad. I think that’s one piece of this that people average people might not necessarily understand. I think that’s an important part of acknowledging that “Yes, that was bad, but we don’t want that to be the climate here anymore.”
Regina
Right, and talking about it is so important, because when you come out of a period like that, the inclination is to not talk about it, because who wants to talk about the “bad old days” as if it’s totally in the past, right? So there’s this silencing that happens, in part because that’s the strategy that you have: don’t talk about it. But then you have this historical amnesia, and you get to a place in history where people feel like it really didn’t happen, or it didn’t happen that way, or it was really long ago, and so it is important to keep that memory alive, to keep that conversation alive.
Anne
Right, to prevent similar things from happening again. Both of you probably know I’m very vocal about confederate flags, in particular. And it’s interesting, we’re looking at comic books, but I think part of this conversation includes icons and symbols, and certainly a confederate flag is one of those [images] that has powerful symbolism. You hear people say, “It represents southern heritage. It’s not negative, it’s just how people perceive it,” and I think that’s where selective, historical amnesia happens sometimes, in wanting to not acknowledge.
Jessica
I think icons are a good way to kind of move into this actual comic – can you hear me turning the pages? Because I think a lot of people say, “Okay, we’re not burning crosses on people’s lawns anymore. What are you so worried about?” There actually is a visual of the cross, the burning cross, in here, and KKK people in here, and then this big comic-y boom right after that… Do you want to talk a little about the iconicity in here or the icons in here?
Anne
Well I guess, as I mentioned earlier, doing this podcast, in preparation, I went back and read some of my previous blog posts for Goshen Commons, and I talk about icons in a number of those blog posts, and specifically negative imagery when it comes to African Americans. I don’t know if this is directly answering your question, but one thing I think about when I look at this particular comic is the way African Americans are represented. A lot of my interest when I was in graduate school was on black caricature and the way African Americans, black people in general, have been portrayed, which tends to be very negative, for some obvious reasons. So, I think that’s one thing that strikes me about the imagery in particular, is that you see African Americans as average people – as humans, as opposed to sub-humans. That is significant, and it’s significant because we’re influenced by things that we see. All the information that we take in on a daily basis really influences our perspectives and opinions, so I can imagine how this was very radical in some ways at the time, because it’s not showing these negative stereotyped caricatures of African Americans. They look like normal people, as they are …
Regina
And that idea about image, and the image that’s portrayed, and countering negative images: one of the things that you see in this comic is it portrays different moments in the movement and [black people] being portrayed, as you said, as regular people. It also reminds me of the way that – if you look at those iconic photographs of civil rights marches, and you see men in suits and ties and Florsheim shoes, and the women in their very modest, neat, perfectly pressed dresses … that’s real, because part of what they were doing was saying, “We are human beings, we are respectable,” and there’s a debate about the purpose of and the usefulness of respectability, politics. But in this moment in time one of the very very important messages that people are trying to portray is their humanity: “We are human beings, we are respectable human beings, we have dignity, and we want to be treated with dignity.” And that is just amazing to me, to think about the protest marches that I’ve been a part of, probably not wearing my dress shoes…
Jessica
Or hats! There are so many hats in here, perfectly coiffed hairdos, too. That’s a great point …
There’s such a contrast in this comic, and we were talking about this a little bit beforehand: There’s all this positive iconicity, for the fifties … [but] what do we see when we see it now?
[All laughing, recorder falls over.]
Anne
Well, I think I was struck more by the language than the images in that regard. Of course all the women are in dresses and the men are in suits and ties, but I think it was mostly the language that I noticed, as a woman living in the United States in 2016. And context is really important there of course, but I think it is important to kind of acknowledge that it is dated, if I can use that word, in that respect.
Regina
I was struck by a couple of things … you know, [like] the overworn phrase, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” is something that I was struck with especially. I don’t know where it is in the pages, [but] the backlash to the bus boycott, and people getting stopped by the police, and the turn signal – the accusation of not using a turn signal as a pretext for being stopped in traffic, and probably getting a fine, and maybe even risking arrest, just immediately took me back to last summer and Sandra Bland, who was stopped on the accusation of a lane change without a turn signal. And that whole episode is within the context of the backlash of the Black Lives Matter movement. Fifty-some years afterwards, the dynamics are remarkably similar to what was going on in that movement. And it’s an important thing to think about, is that when there are movements for liberation there will always be backlash, and that was a really important reminder to me, that the more things change the more they stay the same.
Anne
It’s a little creepy too, though, right? I mean the parallels are just … I mean I found it on this page:
--“The police officers kept bothering us, they even stopped Martin Luther King’s car.”
--“What’s the charge, Officer?”
--“30 miles in a 25-mile zone.”
--“Why don’t you people get wise to yourselves and give up this boycott.”
And in the case of Sandra Bland, she ended up dead as a result of all of this, which is terrifying.
Jessica
I think this also resonates with the immigrant community locally, as well. That happened here as well, with a whole bunch of different groups.
Regina
The other thing that struck me – and I think it’s very much related to what we’ve just said – is the way that Jim Crow is introduced. And context is so important, because there are a lot of people today who don’t necessarily know what Jim Crow is. Here in the comic, it’s presented very matter-of-factly that people are protesting and resisting Jim Crow laws. And in that era, and for people that read this, they would have known exactly what that meant. So for someone reading it now, not having that history, not having that context, it would be important – I almost wish that there was an introduction to this, saying – and probably the re-release does have that in there – here’s what Jim Crow is, here’s how saturated these communities were with Jim Crow, so people become socialized into this context of, “Everybody knows where they are in the racial hierarchy and everybody knows how to behave within that context.” Sort of looping back to sundown towns – you know where you’re supposed to be at what time.
Anne
But even that doesn’t necessarily mean you are safe. I mean, that’s the message I always got just from observing my dad, is that you definitely don’t … you do as you’re told, but even that doesn’t guarantee that you will be safe.
Regina
Exactly, exactly.
Anne
Which is crazy to think about, trying to live in that kind of environment, but …
Regina
Yeah, the cost of that … We think in terms of the monetary cost of that, but also the emotional, psychological cost of hypervigilance all the time, and what we know now about the way that the body works, and the way that the body handles that constant rush of adrenaline and cortisol through your system, we are starting to know more and more about the real health costs of discrimination, of racism, of oppression not only individual people, but on entire communities and societies – and that’s a really important thing to think about.
Anne
To get back to this issue of visual representation and how that manifests itself – because I think whether we’re talking the 1950s or 2016, these attitudes about who people are based on what they look like, especially when you hear accounts of these police officers making these snap judgements about people … to me, it’s a reflection of how imbedded these attitudes and stereotypes are. And they’re continually perpetuated, and you know, I can only really speak to design, [but] even in the graphic design world, African Americans have really been excluded, and certainly they’ve been used in the advertising world in really bad and terrible ways. But even as a practicing designer, I can tell you that African Americans are still professionally … I mean, it’s not very diverse. Our voices are not represented widely, and I that’s part of why these kinds of attitudes are perpetuated, because of the lack of representation, because of the lack of voices, and more people being able to speak [up] – not just African Americans, but people of color in general – that we’re normal human beings, and we’re not predisposed to violence. And I guess the other irony for me is that African Americans in particular have always seemed to be portrayed as violent, and yet you look at all the violence that has been done to African Americans …
Regina
It’s so interesting, yes …
Anne
And yet we have these stereotypes that we live with, and we live accordingly, trying to …
Regina
Because you don’t want to say or do the wrong thing, which could be anything, if you are criminalized, just because of the way you are embodied. Anything you do is criminal when you live in a criminalized body.
Jessica
I’d also like to talk a bit little more about the women – we were talking a little bit beforehand about it. I swear, this is just my favorite frame in all of Comicdom: this woman, I think on page 9 or so – there are no numbers on the pages here, and I’ve been reading the online version, so I might be off if you’re looking for this [frame] yourself while you’re listening to this. But she’s sitting here – I just love this – when they’re talking about trying to be nonviolent, and the message of nonviolence, and what happens in Montgomery after Rosa Parks, and there’s a woman sitting here saying, “I could really wallop him” about this guy next to her who’s harassing her. “He’s smaller than me, but I’m going to remember what Reverend King told me about peace and nonviolence. I’ll just keep my hands clasped – that way there won’t be any trouble.” I just love that, and that makes it seem like women are represented so positively. Yet there’s a complicated … I wouldn’t call it an erasure, but kind of a rewriting. I don’t know, how would you talk to that, Regina?
Regina
I would talk about the revisionist nature of this story, the unfolding of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which this comic kind of perpetuates. And again, recognizing the time that it came out, and the purpose for which it was created, I understand a little bit, but I am constantly disturbed by the way that we understand … So, the short version is [that] on December 1st 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the segregated bus for a white man, and then the Civil Rights Movement emerged fully flung from that moment on. [Laughing] And it completely erases the long, careful, systemic work that people had done months in advance of this moment. That [Parks] was trained, that others were trained for this moment, that another woman who was possibly going to be the “test case” to be arrested and to mobilize this movement … they didn’t use her. Claudette Colvin, I believe, is her name: a young woman who was an unmarried pregnant teenager. She was also dark skinned, which is an important thing to think about, and so she wasn’t the perfect person to mobilize this action that many, many, many people were prepared for: from the moment that Rosa Parks was arrested, they were ready to go into motion. So you need to know that history, and this comic doesn’t give you that history. I understand that that’s not the purpose of this comic at that moment in time, but to go back and add in that there were lots and lots of people who were organizing, who were strategizing, who were preparing themselves, who were being educated at the Highlander Center in Tennessee, and they were ready to go. This is a moment that was born out of hundreds of people patiently and carefully preparing. And I think in terms of what they had to do to carry that movement through … if people aren’t going to ride the bus for a year, you have to carpool, and everybody doesn’t have a car, so it’s not carpooling 2016, it’s carpooling 1955 and 1956: it’s walking to work, it’s everything takes longer, it’s when you have these long meetings at church at night, who’s going to feed all these people? It’s who’s sneaking off at their job and photocopying all these fliers that people need to get ...
Jessica
Jo Ann Robinson, especially, is someone who’s written out of this …
Regina
Exactly. So, I do mourn the erasure of that, but also, for those of us that know that story, and for those of us that are coming to know that story: we need to really keep talking about that [story,] and not just remember the names of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King and John Lewis. Those are very important names, but all of them, I believe ... well, John Lewis does say, and Rosa Parks and Dr. King hopefully would also say [that] there were way more people: this was a community event. The other thing that I will say just quickly, is that Rosa Parks cut her organizing teeth on working against sexualized violence towards African American women. And that’s a really important part of her story as well, and if people want to read about that, there’s a fantastic book that came out a few years ago, called At the Dark End of the Street [Vintage 2011]. I can’t remember the author’s name right now [Danielle L. McGuire. –Ed.], but it’s a really, really wonderful history of, particularly, Rosa Parks coming into her own as a political organizer.
Anne
That’s part of the problem with MLK Day, is that we … again, this is the whole symbolism, icon [discussion]: we like him as the symbol for Civil Rights movement, but we don’t talk about a lot of the things that you’re mentioning and the amount of work that it took. I mean, community organizing, right? It didn’t just start with Obama, so … [Laughing]. And I do think – you know and this gets at one of the questions, Jessica, I think you had asked earlier – then those symbols become one-dimensional, in a way. I was thinking about the parallel between Obama – like Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” posters – and the symbol of MLK, and I think there are definitely some positives to that, but then a lot of the story gets lost. Certainly, when you’re running for political office, that’s very different from when you’re pushing a civil rights movement. But I always … again, think about the portrayal of African Americans, how they are represented to a larger audience. Even in that , even though the one dimension becomes problematic in a lot of ways, at least we’re seeing a positive image. But yeah, it’s complicated.
Jessica
It is complicated! I mean, especially toward the end [of the comic,] I think this all seems a little clunky to us now, right? With [Rev. Ralph] Abernathy praying before he goes into jail, and the sun streaming down on him, from ... God? I think? You turn the page, and MLK is saying that God actually answered, and it’s this huge MLK head … And there’s something that’s so great about the comic book, bringing people into the discussion who might not have been brought into it before, and this comic also serves a very powerful purpose of step-by-step directions for organizing, right? So that’s very, very important to acknowledge as well – and yet MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech is also kind of oversimplified, iconized, kind of like the way the head – head and shoulders? Part of his shoulders? – of MLK and his red tie [look] on the back of this. It’s complicated, as we’ve said multiple times already.
Anne
It’s interesting. And of course as a designer, I also look at even the colors that are used, and just the style. I mean, obviously, it fits with a genre, but it’s very striking, you know. When you look closely at things, it’s very striking.
Jessica
Well, it’s very silver age of comics, for those who are familiar with that. But especially, turning to the next-to-last page, it’s also fascinating ... I think that’s one of the other things I was struck by, is what can comic books do that photos of the Civil Rights Movement can’t, right? Because there’s this drawing that echoes Little Rock, but it’s not quite the same thing: it’s a drawing, rather than a photo. I mean, there are people that argue in comics theory that drawing – with its iconicity, with its simplification – can bring people in and help them say, “Okay, maybe I could do this, too,” rather than people seeing this famous black-and-white photo that says, “This is history. Study history.”
Anne
I think that that’s an interesting point, because I do think that sometimes, even [with] these events more recently – Sandra Bland and Laquan McDonald – that there’s an extent to which it still seems abstract because it’s happening elsewhere, and it becomes another news item, and they come and go. I would even say the same for gun violence, just gun violence in general: these stories happen, and then they go away, and then they come back again and go away again. So I do think that there’s something to be said for other avenues of reaching people in a way that they can respond to differently.
Regina
And I think to the idea of or the reality of accessibility, there may be people – there probably were people – that never would have picked up a comic book. But there were probably more people that would pick up a comic book that wouldn’t necessarily read a chapter in a history book or read an editorial in the newspaper. And so, I always think that the more ways there are of telling a story, the more people who have access to a narrative: that’s always a good thing.
Anne
That’s what I was going to say: it’s presented as a narrative, as opposed to a news story. And the information is even given to you in smaller chunks – like the text – which I think does make it more accessible in a lot of ways.
Jessica
It’s interesting toward the end, where [the comic] gets a little more instruction-y. The frames disappear, the squares around these pictures disappear, and I do wonder if that’s part of the, “Okay, here’s the do-it-yourself …
Anne
Well, “Here’s the story leading up,” and then, “and now, here’s how this works, here’s how you can participate, and…”
Regina
And with F.O.R. [Fellowship of Reconciliation] publishing this, they do have in mind a very specific group of people that they want this history, this narrative, to go to, and they are saying very clearly, “And now it is your responsibility to pick up your part of this history, your part of changing the master narrative,” if you will. You walk into this story and you have a responsibility to act. This is your moment.
Jessica
Also, I don’t know how much you know about the current publication history, but this [comic] has been translated into many languages now. And John Lewis claimed that a recent translation of this [comic] was instrumental to the Egypt uprising, even.
Regina
Interesting.
Jessica
Which sounds so cool … and yet when we’ve been talking about how dated it is, and the power of the visual, right? It concerns me a little bit. I’m just trying to figure out what the balance is here, right? I don’t know, could it … I mean, clearly that’s good, but I get concerned about, is it destructive, as well, at the same time? Or do people just recognize that it’s out of time? Or do they not recognize that it’s out of time, if the words are in translation but the images stay the same?
Regina, Anne
Interesting …
Jessica
I’m just not sure what to do with that.
Anne
Well, I think … obviously it’s a complicated question, and I guess I would hope that the underlying message is the thing that carries and the thing that resonates. But it’s hard for me to say, because I see the images, and they are dated. Again, they are representing African Americans in a very dignified way, but the clothing, you know, is at least one thing that puts things in context. So I know in my own mind … how to read this, how to interpret this – and, plus, I wasn’t in existence when this stuff was happening, right? So, I am already going to bring a different perspective to it. I mean, I think maybe one of the important pieces – this is kind of going back to something Regina pointed out, some of the similarities [today] of getting pulled over for the speeding ticket – [is] there’s no doubt that that’s part of what makes [the comic] powerful, that [it] resonates as being contemporary even though it was written in a particular context. But as to how people reconcile that for themselves, I don’t know.
Regina
Another parallel to this moment in time, this historical moment in time, and the contemporary moment that we live in – sort of a compare-contrast – is the conversation that I’ve heard, a little bit, of people sort of hand-slapping the Black Lives Matter movement for a variety of reasons, and trying to push the idea that the people in the Civil Rights Movement would not be proud of the way that [Black Lives Matter is] doing [it] … and then, gladly, I’ve heard some people from within Black Lives Matter speak against that and say, “This is our moment in time, … [but] we are not against the tactics of our elders. Our elders are here with us.” I heard a really beautiful interview on On Being a few weeks ago with one of the founders of Black Lives Matter talking about the movement drawing on things that have happened in the past – not only the Civil Rights Movement as we understand it from the 50’s and 60’s – and saying people should not see this moment as speaking against that moment in time. It is the evolution, it is the moment that we’re in now, and there are very many similarities. It’s not just 20- and 30-year-olds that are in that moment: it spans generations. And to hear that acknowledgement – and that’s not the only place that I’ve heard that acknowledgement of, “No, this is a continual movement, this is something that spans generations, and this is a moment in time, and this is what we’re doing. We have things – we have technology – that we didn’t have back at that time, so of course we’re going to do things differently.” But to deny the gifts of what the people in this movement made for this moment would be a terrible mistake. And I was really grateful to hear that. It’s one of the things that I just need to remember.
Anne
So, people are saying that these two are not really – this is where I’m out of the loop a little bit – so, there’s criticism about Black Lives Matter because they’re saying that it is a critique of the Civil Rights Movement?
Regina
Well, I think that, overall, there are people who want to disparage any liberation movement, so they’ll grab ahold of whatever they can. And one of the ways to put a wedge in [a movement like] that is always to say – particularly to young people – that you’re not doing it right, and “back in my day,” and that sort of thing.
Anne
Right, right …
Regina
And to loop back to something that I said earlier about the way that people are dressed in this [comic], that’s one of the things that Black Lives Matter and other movements disrupt. And again, with the historical amnesia: not remembering that [with] this movement, part of the strategy is that you disrupt, [saying], “We are not having business as usual. We are going to interrupt your lovely day [laughing], so that you can pay attention to what’s happening.”
Anne
But isn’t that what we do with everything, is romanticize everything? Even the Civil Rights Movement has become very romanticized in some ways, and that’s why, when I think about the stories that my dad has shared, like growing up in Jim Crow era … I have a hard time watching the documentaries on Civil Rights / Jim Crow era because it’s real to me in a way that it might not be for other people, and it’s hard to just watch it as information and learning about American history – it’s very visceral. And I think, actually, that I blogged about this. I tried to watch 12 Years a Slave, a film [directed] by Steve McQueen, and that was really difficult, in part because for whatever reason, I had that experience where it’s no longer an abstract thing. These are my ancestors we’re talking about right now, and this was real, and it happened and it wasn’t just … it’s not entertainment.
Regina
It’s not entertainment … I have not brought myself, and I probably will never see that, so …
Anne
I had to fast-forward through parts, I will tell you, because I just could not … But I think that maybe that’s part of it: it’s nicely packaged for the past – and it kind of then relates to the Goshen sundown town resolution – like that was part of the past and we don’t want to acknowledge [it]. I mean, it’s done, ”Just get over it. Slavery was a long time ago.” But not really thinking about the psychological – and I think you also mentioned this, too – the psychological and cultural repercussions of all of this.
Regina
Right, right … and I think that point [about] romanticizing the movement is so important. Just this morning, on Facebook, someone put a screenshot of a poll that was taken of the freedom riders in May 1961, and it’s an approval rating. The question: Do you approve or disapprove of what the ‘freedom riders’ – in scare quotes – are doing? 21% approved, 61% disapproved, 18% had no opinion.
2nd question: Do you think ‘sit-ins’ – again, in scare quotes. That’s so funny to me – ‘freedom buses’ – scare quotes again – and other demonstrations by Negros will hurt or help the Negro’s chances of being integrated in South? Remember, this is 1961: we were “Negroes” then. 28% of those polled said that the sit ins would help, 57% said the sit ins would hurt, and 16% had no opinion. So that’s just really striking to me, that the majority of people were like, “No, no, no, black people – or Negroes – stop the madness! You’re gonna get your rights, just calm down. Everybody just calm down and wait – it’s gonna happen.” But nothing happens unless you stir the pot.
Jessica
And just in case, for people listening: this [poll] was posted by the Washington Post, recently? This was originally a Gallup poll, 1961, so …
Regina
Right, I just screenshotted, so …
Anne
But you know the other thing that’s interesting about this is the ways in which technology changes – and this again kind of relates to something you were saying earlier, Regina. It’s the same even with the design industry. You think about Gutenberg’s Bible and the printing press – all of the new advances that have changed the way we work, the way we practice – and I think it’s the same with social movements. So, of course people are responding and galvani… what’s the word I’m looking for? They’re coming together based on the technologies – in part based on the technologies that we have …
Jessica
This is so important, to think of a comic book as a “technology,” right?
Anne
Absolutely, absolutely. So, you’re responding using the things that are available to you. It’s sort of like the way posters have been used traditionally, and the fact of the matter is that you can … a designer can design a beautiful poster, but you go to any protest march and you see people have made their own posters, and in many ways those are just as powerful, if not more so. So it is a way of, I guess, getting people … empowering people to be able to speak in whatever way they can. And so I think that that, to me, it’s interesting, the Civil Rights Movement versus – I shouldn’t say versus Black Lives Matter, but I see the extension [of the movement,] and that the way people are organizing is influenced by the resources and technology that they have available to them. So in my mind, they’re all together, sort of, they’re just getting their message out in different ways.
Regina
And the fact that people in Egypt have access to this 1950s comic is absolutely aided by the technology that we have now, right?
Jessica
This has been really awesome. I think we’d better wrap this up before it gets too long. I really want to keep talking, but …
[laughing]
I think it’s time to stop. But thank you so much. I think we’ve done the most important thing: for anybody that’s still doubting the idea that comic books are important, or that graphic novels are important, I think we’ve made it really clear that this [comic] was a really important piece. So definitely look it up if you haven’t. Thank you so much!
Regina
Thank you.
Anne
Thank you, Jessica.