Theologizing Comics and Graphic Novels with Martin Luther King, Jr.

This panel discusses the ways in which Martin Luther King, Jr. shows up in graphic novels and comics. It aims to theolgize comics via the lends of a Kingian positionality.  As example of this work,  by focusing on the 1957 graphic novel, Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, participants explore the publication as a vital piece of "popular" culture that helped democratize the lessons of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the longue duree of the Civil Rights Movement within the broader context of U.S. history.   Further, When David C. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene dropped Bitter Root into the world, they broke open new possibilities for investigating theological meaning-making with comics and graphic novels. By centering on a Black family in the United States who move through space-time and engage in rootwork, Bitter Root raises important questions about the possibility or impossibility of nonviolent resistance.