In the spring of 1958, civil rights leader and future Georgia Congressman John Lewis met Jim Lawson, an organizer with a nonviolent organizing group called the Fellowship Of Reconciliation (FOR). Lawson introduced Lewis to the FOR's popular comic book , which provided a compelling graphic narrative of the Montgomery bus boycott, as well as an accessible outline of FOR's broad ethic of nonviolent civil disobedience. Lewis the comic as a "Bible" and "guide" for Southern civil rights organizers of the time—an invaluable source of both emotional inspiration and practical guidance to the growing family of nonviolent resistors.
Fifty-six years later, Lewis is hoping that his new graphic memoir can provide a similar stimulus to a new generation of civil rights activists—the "past and future children" of the movement, as he refers to them in the dedication page. March is an autobiography in three parts, and Book One was released in August 2013. Books two and three are forthcoming, and a release date has not yet been set for either of them. Book one focuses on Lewis's upbringing in Pike County, Alabama and follows his evolution as a civil rights leader, especially as a participant in the Nashville food counter sit-ins of 1960.
March is a much longer narrative than The Montgomery Story, allowing it to both meaningfully testify to the lived experiences of Lewis and other activists while depicting in detail the overarching strategies and philosophy of the movement. Much of this is accomplished through the creative choices of illustrator Nate Powell, who excels at visually emphasizing the story's most important and heart-wrenching moments. Powell often utilizes broad, eye-catching images that transcend traditional panels and free small pieces of text to speak more loudly. His accessible and innovative artwork underscores the great potential of graphic novels to communicate deeply and directly to diverse audiences.
However, while March is perhaps the exemplar of recent graphic novels that bring civil rights and racial justice issues to light, it is far from the only one. In February, Marvel comics released issue 1 of a new series about a 16-year old Pakistani-American teenager who develops superpowers. While Ms. Marvel has been perhaps the most high-profile step forward in integrating and even foregrounding racial justice issues into the comic book world, she too is not the first. She was preceded by countless, less successful twists on traditional comics' lore, many of which were printed by DC Comics' short-lived Milestone Comics imprint. Milestone, created in 1993 to address a lack of diversity in the DC universe, introduced the popular African-American teenage superhero Static, as well as more experimental works such as Blood Syndicate, a series about multiracial gangsters who develop superpowers after being mutated by experimental police teargas. Static and Blood Syndicate were also two of the first mainstream superhero comics to feature openly gay characters.
A number of artists have also released important graphic works in the last 10 years that deal more explicitly with black history and contemporary civil rights issues. Vertigo's follows a light-skinned Black reporter in the deep south who must pass as white to investigate his brother's arrest. The book was inspired by the real-life experiences of Walter White, former head of the NAACP, who went undercover to report on lynchings. Kyle Baker's has also been critically acclaimed for its graphic depiction (in form and content) of the 1831 slave rebellion that provoked a wave of strengthened social control over slaves in Antebellum America. The New Press has even recently reissued in graphic form its 1999 study on mass incarceration and racial disparities,
Read in the context of this exciting and growing body of graphic work, one must be hopeful that March will broaden the public's familiarity with the lives of Congressman Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr., and the countless other men and women of the Black freedom struggle. And it is through such exciting and innovative art that we might move closer to Congressman Lewis' wish to "imbue people with something – the young, the very young, and those not so young, [to] be ready to go out there, and push and pull."
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Statement on House AI Task Force ReportACLU Statement on House AI Task Force Report
WASHINGTON — Today, the House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence (AI) issued its final report, marking an important step in recognizing the serious risks of discrimination and bias posed by AI systems — particularly in law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. The report recognizes that discrimination and bias may arise in AI systems due to their design, training data, or failures by end users. The report also investigates the complex considerations around deepfakes, open AI systems, and free speech, and urges Congress to pass narrow legislation to address concrete harms. In response to the House AI Task Force final report, Cody Venzke, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, issued the following statement: “The ACLU commends the Task Force for recognizing that AI systems are harming people right now through discriminatory outcomes and supercharged surveillance. Curbing those abuses of AI is not a partisan issue, and more concrete action is needed to protect civil rights, while maintaining states’ authority to build on those protections. The Task Force is appropriately cautious when wrestling with issues around deepfakes, open-source AI, digital identity, and other issues, recognizing that legislators should consider a wide array of tailored tools to address real, not speculative, harms while respecting civil rights and civil liberties.” The House Task Force on Artificial Intelligence report can be found here. -
News & CommentaryDec 2024
Racial Justice
Human Rights
Why the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights IssueWhy the Fight for Racial Justice is a Human Rights Issue
On International Human Rights Day, the ACLU is advocating for a long-sought after reparatory justice to end the continued abuses against Black and brown communities. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
National Security
+2 Issues
ACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key ProtectionsACLU Warns that Biden-Harris Administration Rules on AI in National Security Lack Key Protections
WASHINGTON — The Biden-Harris administration today released its National Security Memorandum on Artificial Intelligence (AI), establishing guidelines for how the U.S. government uses AI in national security programs, such as counterterrorism, intelligence, homeland security, and defense. The use of AI to automate and expand national security activities poses some of the greatest dangers to people’s lives and civil liberties. Agencies are increasingly exploring the use of AI in decisions about who to surveil, who to stop and search at the airport, who to add to government watchlists, and even who is a military target. While the government’s policy includes some important steps forward — such as requiring national security agencies to better track and assess their AI systems for risks and prohibiting a subset of dangerous AI uses — it falls far short in other critical areas, leaving glaring gaps with respect to independent oversight, transparency, notice, and redress. The policy imposes few substantive safeguards on a wide range of AI-driven activities, by and large allowing agencies to decide for themselves how to mitigate the risks posed by national security systems that have immense consequences for people’s lives and rights. As we have repeatedly seen before, this is a recipe for dangerous technologies to proliferate in secret. “Despite acknowledging the considerable risks of AI, this policy does not go nearly far enough to protect us from dangerous and unaccountable AI systems. National security agencies must not be left to police themselves as they increasingly subject people in the United States to powerful new technologies,” said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “If developing national security AI systems is an urgent priority for the country, then adopting critical rights and privacy safeguards is just as urgent. Without transparency, independent oversight, and built-in mechanisms for individuals to obtain accountability when AI systems err or fail, the policy’s safeguards are inadequate and place our civil rights and civil liberties at risk.” For years, the American Civil Liberties Union has been urging far stronger safeguards and transparency about the AI tools that national security agencies are deploying, the rules constraining their use, and the dangers these systems pose to fairness, privacy, and due process. -
Press ReleaseOct 2024
Racial Justice
ACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and VendorsACLU Comment on the Department of Labor’s AI Guidelines for Employers and Vendors
WASHINGTON — Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released a roadmap for artificial intelligence (AI) best practices, designed to ensure that emerging technologies such as AI enhance job quality, benefit workers, and comply with existing employment laws when they are used in the workplace. The best practices, pursuant to President Biden’s executive order on the development and use of AI, include recommendations for AI system developers and employers that prioritize workers’ experiences and empowerment throughout the entire AI lifecycle – from design to use and oversight. These practices also call on employers and developers to create standards and processes to identify and mitigate risks from AI systems, such as threats to health and safety, civil rights, privacy, fair labor rights, and labor organizing prior to a developer marketing them or an employer deploying them, and recommend turning to different systems when sufficient mitigation is not possible. “We applaud DOL for issuing best practices for use of AI that center workers’ empowerment, civil rights, privacy, and safety protections and call on developers and employers to adopt critical guardrails in developing, procuring and using AI systems. Employers and developers should take note, as many have been burying their heads in the sand on their risk of legal liability with respect to AI tools,” said Olga Akselrod, senior staff attorney of the ACLU Racial Justice Program. “Following these best practices for AI can help employers and developers ensure that they do not violate existing civil rights and other employment laws that protect workers.” The best practices also recommend transparency measures through conducting and publishing impact assessments, notice and recourse for impacted workers, and measures to minimize worker displacement. The DOL also stated that employers should minimize electronic monitoring and avoid unnecessary collection or retention of worker data.