Congressman John C. Lewis grew up in Pike County, Alabama during the reign of Jim Crow. Segregation, the separation of white and non-white people, was all he knew until his Uncle Otis resolved to take him up to Buffalo, New York to see his Aunts and experience what life is like outside of the South. Lewis’s trip to Buffalo, New York with his uncle helped to dispel the idea that the separation of blacks and whites was “natural”. To illustrate this, artist Nate Powell uses a variety of comics techniques like amplification through simplification, visual symbolism and lights and darks to mirror Lewis’s sense of “otherworldliness” upon arriving up north as well as the mental transformation initiated by his experience.
The first technique Powell uses is “amplification through simplification” to focus on Lewis’s initial astonishment to his arrival in New York. After driving for seventeen hours John and his Uncle arrive in Buffalo to a lively and crowded city. As they drive by Powell uses “amplification through simplification” to emphasize the sense of astonishment and wonder Lewis felt upon arriving in Buffalo (Lewis, Aydin and Powell 42). Here the panel is zoomed in on Lewis’ face as he peers out of the car window. Compared to the detail Powell gives on many of the other faces of other characters in the the memoir, Lewis’ face is drawn simple to reflect the childlike innocence of the scene. The focus on John’s face also draws the reader’s attention to his eyes that are wide with excitement as Powell literally and metaphorically depicts John’s arrival as an “eye-opening” experience. Having grown up in the rural south, John is used to dirt roads and staunch segregation so it is no wonder that the hustle and bustle of the city and intermixing of people comes off as shocking. Lewis describes the city as a “strange” and “otherworldly” place, so to capture this Powell draws a star-speckled city with towering buildings and flashing lights. Coupled with the stars in the sky, the close up of John’s face behind the glass of the car window creates this astronautical feel. It’s as if John floating through space observes a strange new world with strange inhabitants he has never really interacted with before. In Buffalo everything seems “strange” and unnatural not only because of the infrastructure, but because whites and blacks live together in relative harmony. These “unnatural” living conditions directly contrast with the southern ideal that segregation is a “natural” between the races.
In the following scene where Lewis goes shopping with his Aunts and stops at the candy bar.“I remember I bought a bag of Brach’s Neapolitan candy” he recounts, “each little cube with a layer of white coconut, red strawberry and brown chocolate. I made that bag last forever, savoring each piece as if it were made of pure gold” (Lewis 51). Here the neapolitan candy serves as a symbol for integration. There are three different flavors, all of a different color and they are all side by side much like the people who live in Buffalo. They may be distinct and contrasting, but they come together to make something saccharine and “pure”. The candy represents Lewis’ captivating experience with race in the North, which he tries to make “last forever”.
Towards the end of the trip, the audience gets the idea that Lewis’s stay will remain in his memory for a long time not simply because Lewis says so, but because Powell visually implies so as well. Powell illustrates the effect the Buffalo has on Lewis in two ways: the gutter and use of light and dark. The first technique he uses is manipulating the gutter to create an almost timeless effect. When Lewis and his Aunt go to the market to buy a chicken for dinner, Powell uses a panel frame to split John’s face in half (Lewis, Aydin and Powell 45). By separating this particular panel away from others on the page, Powell gives this panel its own distinct “time
slot”, as if this is happening at a different moment in time than everything else on the page. Add on some visual symbolism and it looks like John is being split in half, as if in the panel’s realm of timelessness there is a psychological development taking place inside his mind. His way of life in Alabama, the only one he’s known up until this point, conflicts with the new way of life he is discovering in Buffalo. For example, back at home John abhors the death of his chickens, but here he stares on in wonder at the efficient manner in which the chickens are handled and later he has no trouble eating the butchered chicken at dinner.
The second technique that is utilized is shading. Instead of color, Powell uses variation in ink shade, from black to white, to fill in the characters and backgrounds of the comic. Exaggerated lights and darks can give off distinct moods and atmosphere. In the panel where John is split, whereas the surrounding panels have the distinct farmer’s market in the background, there is black space surrounding his and the butcher’s head (Lewis, Aydin and Powell 45). This reinforces the suspended and timeless feel framed by the panel and gutter. Also, immediately surrounding John’s head is a slight area of light which also fortifies that an dynamic memory is being generated. The most crucial use of light and dark regarding Lewis’s trip to Buffalo is actually after he arrives back home from the trip. He directly states that after the trip “home never felt the same and neither did I” and to illustrate this Powell drew John with his sibling standing at the bus stop surrounded by black. This all encompassing blackness coupled with the dialogue gives off a closed off and bleak atmosphere to parallel the obstructed and isolated lives of many African Americans living in the Jim Crow South. This dark world is the complete opposite of the city Powell constructed on page 42 with its bright lights. The dark represents the ignorance and despair of the South while the light in the city shows the insight and possibilities of the North. It is no wonder, then, that Powell chooses to surround John in a small circle of light as his trip has literally enlightened him to the ways of the world and the possibilities of the future. He is now aware of the world around him and the differences he notices between African Americans and white people sparks his resolve to become educated and ultimately make a difference.
After his trip, John finds sanctuary at school and is determined to continue his studies even at the cost of disobeying his family. He ardently read in the library, particularly black magazines like Jet, Ebony, The Chicago Defender, etc. These served, for John and for many other African Americans, as a basis of understanding what was happening in the Unites States as it pertained to African Americans. When the newspaper came out showcasing the ruling of Brown v. the Board of education, Lewis has the social context to understand what it means and when he hears Martin Luther King on the radio he feels a personal call to action. Without the trip to Buffalo or his Uncle Otis’s insistence, Lewis might not have seen the possibilities and given into the hopelessness that many African Americans suffered from after decades of forced ignorance, abuse and oppression. With the hope instilled in him, Lewis managed to help give hope to generations and generations of other. black children
Works Cited
Lewis, John. Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, Simon & Schuster, aaaaa1998.
Lewis, John, et al. March. Top Shelf Productions, 2013.
