Civil Rights Movement Captured In New Princeton Exhibit

PRINCETON, NJ — An exhibit currently on display at Princeton University documents the long history of suffering and resistance that constitutes the Civil Rights movement. It also illustrates shifting social norms, according to the university.

The “Civil Rights in Comics,” will be open at Princeton University’s Bernstein Gallery in Robertson Hall until Nov. 15, the university announced. The free, public exhibit is derived from the 2016 exhibit “From MLK to March: Civil Rights in Comics” that was on display at the August Wilson Center for African American Culture.

Curated by art historian Sylvia Rhor and funded by the Pittsburgh Foundation, that show was organized by Rob Rogers, president of ToonSeum, Pittsburgh’s Museum of Comics and Cartoons.

• The comic book “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story” (1958, Fellowship of Reconciliation); and
• The award-winning graphic novel trilogy “March” (2013-2016, Top Shelf Productions), a memoir trilogy by and about Congressman John Lewis (D-GA) in collaboration with writer Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell.

The exhibit’s images illustrate how such leaders have combined forces with everyday people — riders, marchers, boycotters, sitters, protesters — to make the civil rights movement what it is. At a time when the nation continues to struggle with issues of social justice, 60 years of triumphs and setbacks can be viewed in these two books.

Sometimes dismissed as pulpy entertainment, comic books are not always seen as instruments of social change. Yet, comics were powerful vehicles for bringing national attention to the inequalities and violence of the Jim Crow South and for promoting principles of nonviolence during the 1950s and 1960s. Further, they continue to inspire a new generation to nonviolent activism across the world.

Patch file photo