{"id":61,"date":"2013-09-22T12:05:03","date_gmt":"2013-09-22T19:05:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomchristopher.com\/new-wp\/?page_id=61"},"modified":"2022-03-11T13:09:12","modified_gmt":"2022-03-11T21:09:12","slug":"martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-montgomery-story","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/tomchristopher.com\/comics4\/martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-montgomery-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Martin Luther King Jr and the Montgomery Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n

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no justice no peace<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

2022 update<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

The<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

Comic Book <\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

That Taught the World <\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

About Non-Violence<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

THANK YOU for VOTING!<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

It’s been a weird year and a half since the election and we’ve continued to see a greater divide between the two major American political parties, and the American people.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Writing as someone who doesn’t expect the capitalist system or the democratic party to represent my opinions or interests, as an American i am glad to see the country to be represented by people living in the real world and able to see beyond the rat-like avarice of the previous administration. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Some people don’t think voting is important and some people thought Trump as president would ‘shake-up the system’. Well, after four years of trump’s psychosis being acted out in the headlines the US has seen overt racial discrimination, voter intimidation and intellectual repression in schools, churches , polling places and the media. <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

The jim-crow fascism of the 1950s that created this book is still alive today and white supremacy has many true believers. This book was created at a time when nazis and the kkk could march openly and assault passers-by. A time when black churches burned and a time of law and order to which trump promised to return us in his 2015 speeches.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

The people who used this book as a tool in 1958 used it for education to promote political activity and social change. They believed in voting. Voting is a major tool for education and freedom.<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

I hope as you read this you’ll consider how important it is to be politically organized and to vote. If voting wasn’t important, why would the republicans go to such trouble to make it hard for us to do?
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Since 1958 this text has been used successfully to teach non violence internationally and it is an important educational piece today<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Take it and use it, write about it, send links to your friends.<\/strong><\/em> If you’re reading this, you’re reading it for the right reasons, if you have a printer, that’s a tool. make copies and do mini comics and educate yourself and your friends<\/p>\n

Ethan Persoff has a complete copy on his website, there’s a link below. read the whole thing, copy it, pass it around<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ep.tc\/mlk\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This book is currently in print and available from the original publishers, the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Buy it from them or get it in a comic store or ebay. give it to your kids or your parents or your republican relatives or coworkers<\/p>\n

https\/\/forusa.org<\/a><\/p>\n

this really is the time to make the change in society that we want, please do what you can to encourage others to vote and be active.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a1el pueblo unido, jam\u00e1s ser\u00e1 vencido!<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n
And that is your 2022 Biden Administration update to the Comic Book that Taught the Wold About Civil Disobedience<\/span><\/h6>\n

the people united will never be defeated<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n
and now, without further ado we take great pride in presenting the original internet history of<\/span><\/h6>\n

M A R T I N \u00a0 L U T H E R\u00a0\u00a0 K I N G
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and the<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

M o n t g o m e r y\u00a0 \u00a0 S t o r y<\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

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Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story<\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Published by<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The Fellowship of Reconciliation<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Nyack, New York, 1957<\/span><\/p>\n

The Fellowship of Reconciliation was established informally in 1914 by Henry Hodgkin, an English Quaker and Friedrich Sigmund-Schultze, a German Lutheran, who were returning from a failed ecumenical conference in Switzerland hoping to prevent the outbreak of World War 1.<\/p>\n

Hodgkin and Sigmund-Schultze pledged to find a way of working for peace even though their countries were now at war.<\/p>\n

The FOR was founded formally in Cambridge England in December 1914, and the American organization in 1915.<\/p>\n

The FOR has since become an interfaith and international movement with branches in over 40 countries on every continent.<\/p>\n

Since its founding the FOR has worked internationally for peace and social justice. It helped organize the National Civil Liberties Bureau (which became the ACLU) as well as the first National Conference of Christians and Jews, as well as international pro-union and anti-war organizing.<\/p>\n

In the 1940s it worked against interment of Americans of Japanese descent, and in Europe FOR members rescued Jews and political refugees from the Nazis. In America, in 1947, they sponsored the first inter racial \u2018freedom ride\u2019 to challenge discrimination in interstate travel.<\/p>\n

In the 1950s the FOR helped organize the American Committee on Africa to support African independence and conducted a six year program to help feed China during a time of famine.<\/p>\n

Also in the 1950s the Fellowship worked with Martin Luther King Jr during the Montgomery bus boycott and held workshops on non-violence throughout the South. This comic book was produced as part of that work.<\/p>\n

The book was the idea of Alfred Hassler, who was, in 1956, the Publications Director for the FOR. He could see the need for a solid educational tool for non-violence in what was going to be a time of social change. He worked over a two year period to develop the book with Benton Resnick.<\/p>\n

Resnick is referred to as the writer elsewhere, but that seems erroneous. Resnick was business manager for Toby Press, which had ceased publication in mid 1955 and was operating as Graphic Information Service at the same address, and was apparently known as the Al Capp Studio.<\/p>\n

Elliot Caplin was Al Capp’s brother. He had been a writer for King Features beginning in 1937 and became an editor for Parent’s Magazine’s True Comics in 1942, where he continued, interrupted by military service, until 1949.<\/p>\n

The Capp Studio and Toby Press were\u00a0set up in 1949\u00a0to\u00a0handle the reprinting \u00a0of Capp’s Li’l Abner\u00a0comic strip, and soon branched out to issue other strip reprints and new material. Caplin is listed as editor, and has one listed writing credit in 1952’s Tales of Horror #1, but he was also writing the comic strips Abbie and Slatts and Big Ben Bolt, both of which he co-created and he co-created Juliette Jones during this time. Around 1949 he drew and possibly wrote the liberal anti-Taft comic, which was notorious for it’s strident politics.<\/p>\n

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Benton Resnick\u00a0has no known writing credit, though Benton Rice is credited with at least 8 text stories in Toby Press books. His son believes he handled only the business and production aspects of the Montgomery\u00a0project. My own assumption would be that he was somewhat of a de-facto editor, but I don’t think Alfred Hassler needed an editor. It was his project and he knew what he wanted,\u00a0and Resnick was the guy inside the Capp Studio, dealing with the client.<\/p>\n

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Benton Reznick is referred to elsewhere as being blacklisted, but\u00a0this is not easily substantiated. He was allegedly blacklisted after testifying before the senate, and sometimes the Committee to Evaluate Comic Books is connected\u00a0but this makes little sense. I can find no reference to him in the Senate hearings and i don’t understand what the mechanism would be to black list him as a business manager.<\/p>\n

The Committee to Evaluate Comic Books was a religious\/civic improvement organization in Cincinnati, Ohio, 1948 – 1979. They seem to have written letters, collected information, and held meetings to report to each other on their correspondence and comic book reading. They created a scale for rating the contents of comic books, published their findings in parent’s magazine and contributed Exhibits 6a, 6b and 7 to the 1954 Senate Sub Committee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency.<\/p>\n