MONKTON — Vermont Reads is a Vermont Humanities Council program in which citizens throughout the state are invited to read the same book and participate in community activities related to the themes of the book
The Vermont Humanities Council 2019 selection is the graphic novel “March: Book One.” The book is the first of a trilogy written by civil rights icon John Lewis, in collaboration with co-writer Andrew Aydin and award-winning graphic artist Nate Powell. Lewis was chairman of the Students Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was one of the “Big Six” leaders of the civil rights movement.  He has served in the U.S. Congress since 1987 and was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2011.
“March:  Book One” tells of Lewis’s childhood in rural Alabama, his desire as a young man to be a preacher, his life-changing interactions with Martin Luther King, Jr., and the nonviolent sit-ins he joined at lunch counters in Nashville as a means of undermining segregation.
The East Monkton Church Association and the Russell Memorial Library are collaborating to sponsor Vermont Reads 2019.  Copies of the book are available for loan at the Russell Memorial Library during regular patron hours.
A book discussion to explore some of the themes in “March,” will be held on July 11, at 6:30 p.m., at the Russell Memorial Library, 4333 State Prison Hollow Rd.
In a related event, “Rise!” will be shown on July 26, at 7 p.m. at the East Monkton Church, 405 Church Road. “Rise!” is the fifth episode in professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s documentary “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross.” Written and presented by Gates, director of W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, episode five highlights the historic events of African-American people from 1940-1968.
Have a news tip?
Call Liz Pecor @ 453-2180