ToonSeum Gallery, February 10-March 14, 2010

 

Comic books are not usually thought of as instruments of social change. Nor does the comic book medium readily come to mind when thinking about the dramatic days of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. However, in January 1958, a comic book was published that not only directly engaged with the charged issues of race discrimination and Civil Rights activism but also spurred social change in the American South in a wholly distinct manner. In contrast to the lurid true-crime comic books of the period or the innocuous Sunday "Funnies", this comic book highlighted the extraordinary feats of a very unlikely superhero: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And the setting was not one located in a far way galaxy, but rather Montgomery, Alabama during the 376 days of the legendary Bus Boycott that many see as one of the first significant steps in the struggle for racial equality in the South during the 1950s and 1960s. Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story was a comic book like none other and this exhibition focuses on the comic book, its production, and its impact during the Civil Rights Era and beyond. Supported by primary documents, films, and other comic books and cartoons of the period, visitors will use comic book to engage with issues of social justice, learn about the Civil Rights Movements and the controversial place of comic books in American culture during the late 1950s.