Andrew Aydin: The parts of the [Civil Right] Movement we recognize so...

You cannot understand the politics of today without understanding the Civil Rights Movement and the role it played in our society.

Andrew Aydin

roles understanding rights

"March" was inspired by "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story." I actually first heard about that comic from John Lewis, who told me that it played an important role in the movement. And so once he told me about that, it made me start thinking, "Well, why doesn't John Lewis write his own comic book?".

Andrew Aydin

kings writing book

My father was a Muslim immigrant; when Donald Trump started talking about banning Muslim immigrants from this country, I grew my beard out. My mother hated it. She never wanted me to look particularly "Muslim." She thought if I grew my beard out that people would know, right? "Don't make it hard for yourself. Don't let people know."

Andrew Aydin

mother country father

This generation is different. They are not as interested in chasing money or material possessions. I believe that this generation is more interested in seeking social change and a more just society than any generation since those that brought about the civil rights movement and the struggles for human dignity of the 1960s.

Andrew Aydin

struggle rights believe

I have been a comic book fan nearly all my life. My fascination began as a refuge after my father left because it was within the stories told in comics that I could find heroes who fought for justice and where outcasts or misfits could find purpose and commonality. But over time I have come to love comics as a medium for its ability to tell stories with tremendous depth and emotion that in some ways go beyond what is possible solely with the written word.

Andrew Aydin

hero father book

We don't want to just tell [students] who the people are, we don't want to just tell them what happened - we want to show the process by which it formed itself.

Andrew Aydin

students want people

I think this ['March']is essential reading to understand the Black Lives Matter movement. I think it's also essential reading for the Black Lives Matter movement, so that they understand the political context that they're engaging in.

Andrew Aydin

political reading thinking

I think ['March'] is not just for the Black Lives Matter movement. It's for everyone. We all have to understand what happened then, so we can understand what's happening now.

Andrew Aydin

black movement thinking

I spent almost two years working on this book ['March'] before we ever had a publisher, before we ever had a title. And when you're reading it, and you're writing it, and you're ingesting it, sometimes a single word just comes up over and over and over again. And if you're trying to capture the essence of what it is you're trying to tell, you don't have a whole lot of space.

Andrew Aydin

reading writing book

Nothing surprised me more, and meant more to me, than seeing an entire class of ninth graders mob Congressman [John] Lewis at a book festival.

Andrew Aydin

festivals class book

One of the biggest challenges for us is that people have different accounts. People say different things happened at different times, and when you're trying to sort through all that, how do you decide what's right?

Andrew Aydin

challenges trying people

In so many ways, forces unleashed in response to the Movement have come to dominate our politics, and technology is allowing the same injustices to be seen anew.

Andrew Aydin

movement technology way

I hope March is a guide for today's activists. It took raw courage for young people to volunteer to go to Mississippi in the summer of 1964, and unrelenting faith in the power of democracy to organize such a massive campaign.

Andrew Aydin

volunteer summer people

You have such a sacred responsibility when you touch John Lewis's story, when you touch the story of the movement. You don't want to leave anything out, but you want to tell a good story so the people will read it and they're engaged and they don't fall apart with extraneous details.

Andrew Aydin

responsibility people fall

We were trying to show that you should be hopeful, you should be optimistic, but you have to be consistent and persistent, because it's not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year. It's the struggle of a lifetime. And so you're going to have to put in 40 or 50 years to reach that high-water mark.

Andrew Aydin

optimistic struggle years

We chose to frame "March" around the inauguration of Barack Obama because it was such an important moment in the story of the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the fulfillment of Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream, but it was a major down payment.

Andrew Aydin

kings rights dream

I went on to write my graduate thesis on the ["Montgomery Story"] comic book itself. It was the first long-form history that was ever written about it. And it's how I found out Martin Luther King actually helped edit "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story."

Andrew Aydin

kings writing book

I spent 10 years in professional politics and eight writing comics, and so I look at it from both sides. I don't understand the logic in being frustrated with a system, so you choose to be a part of the reason why the system is so frustrating. If everybody voted, it wouldn't be this way.

Andrew Aydin

eight writing years

If voting wasn't important, why would they be spending so much time and so much energy trying to stop you from doing it?

Andrew Aydin

voting important trying

I think people who agree with Donald Trump have repeatedly made the case that he should be able to say whatever he wants to say, it's time someone did that. But as we go and speak to the kids, the young people who are reading March, we see the fear, we hear them tell us how scared they are.

Andrew Aydin

reading kids thinking

The parts of the [Civil Right] Movement we recognize so well now were not born from a single decision, but were a complicated and messy evolution of ideas and spirits, coming together after a long, hard struggle to triumph in moments when the odds seemed the longest.