It's important to realize that the series actually grows with the reader. "March: Book One" is a great introduction for kids as young as eight or nine years old. But then they grow with the reader. Book Two is bigger, Book Three is even bigger. And they grow more violent and more confrontational.

You cannot understand the politics of today without understanding the Civil Rights Movement and the role it played in our society.

"March" was inspired by "Martin Luther King and the Montgomery Story." I actually first heard about that comic from John Lewis, who told me that it played an important role in the movement. And so once he told me about that, it made me start thinking, "Well, why doesn't John Lewis write his own comic book?".

We chose to frame "March" around the inauguration of Barack Obama because it was such an important moment in the story of the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't the fulfillment of Dr. [Martin Luther] King's dream, but it was a major down payment.

So March: Book One was the first book I ever wrote. And it was the most terrifying process I've ever been through.

My father was a Muslim immigrant; when Donald Trump started talking about banning Muslim immigrants from this country, I grew my beard out. My mother hated it. She never wanted me to look particularly "Muslim." She thought if I grew my beard out that people would know, right? "Don't make it hard for yourself. Don't let people know."

We don't want to just tell [students] who the people are, we don't want to just tell them what happened - we want to show the process by which it formed itself.