The story behind the Martin Luther King, Jr., comic book

Watch a video about the creation and legacy of the 1956 comic book “Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story.”

Rod Meade Sperry
18 January 2015
Martin Luther King comic book montgomery bus boycott

Three years ago in the Shambhala Sun (that’s the previous name of Lion’s Roar magazine) we ran a piece called “3 Heroes, 5 Powers,” which shared a sample of The Secret of the Five Powers, a comic book that shed light on the work of Thich Nhat Hanh, Alfred Hassler, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. The Secret of the Five Powers, I learned, was in fact inspired by a previous comic published by Hassler and the FoR. That comic was Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story, first released in 1956. Some of its story appears in this video:

You can imagine my surprise when I strolled into my fantastic local comix shop (thanks, Strange Adventures!) and saw the Montgomery Story on the stands there, looking and feeling as though it had been freshly extracted from a vault or time machine,  but at a perfectly reasonable $5.00 cover price. I snapped one up. Indeed, the comic had been reprinted, so it’s not particularly valuable in terms of investment. But no matter, there’s surely more than five dollars’ worth of inspiration here. So why not take a look at it yourself, online? (Especially if you don’t have a fantastic local comix shop.) Just click here.

Rod Meade Sperry. Photo by Megumi Yoshida, 2024

Rod Meade Sperry

Rod Meade Sperry is the editor of Buddhadharma, Lion’s Roar’s online source for committed Buddhists, and the book A Beginner’s Guide to Meditation: Practical Advice and Inspiration from Contemporary Buddhist Teachers. He lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with his partner and their tiny pup, Sid.