I'm going to try to write a paper for a micro-history class that I have, and I am planning on taking the period of the Civil Rights movement and how comics were used to help fight prejudice and racism.

I read an article recently about it (can't place it now), but I was wondering if anyone here knew of any resources (books, articles, interviews, etc) that may address this issue. Thanks in advance.

X-Men comics have used mutants as a persecuted minority group to basically tell stories about prejudice/racism. The themes can be applied to racial prejudice, homophobia, you name it. The best example I can think of off the top of my head is the God Loves, Man Kills graphic novel which I believe is still in print.

Searchin' through Amazon with keywords civil rights and comic books comes up with Stuck Rubber Baby, a graphic novel dealing with "homophobia, racism and the gay subculture of that period."

I was trying to find a book on the subject for ya, but the graphic novel is all that came up. If you're interested, it looks like it's out of print, but I bet it'll turn up on eBay from time to time. There are two ended auctions for it within the last month.

Oh, and Maus of course deals with the holocaust. That might not be what you're looking for though, as it precedes the era you're looking at (actually, it's set in modern times, but tells the story of the holocaust in flashback - with cats and mice as the characters no less, but, you probably already knew that ). Great book though.

I'll keep looking for "real books" on the subject for ya though, and will drop back by if I find anything.

Good luck.

A cool Black Comic Hero Site that may have some history.

Wow, thanks for all the responses. I'll look into some of those sources. I've gotta get the topic approved first, though...

Thanks again.

Powerman and Ironfist. No other comic showed that the man and the brother could work together so well.

Ooh! You just reminded me! What about Brother Man comics? I never read them, but heard they were quite good. I don't know whether they dealt with racism though.

This is sorta recent (5 or 6 years ago) but DC did a series of African-American focused comics with Milestone. I remember one superhero in particular named "Icon".

You're talking about Milestone Comics, which was a remarkable independantly-owned imprint published under DC. The books included Icon, Hardware, Blood Syndicate, and Static Shock (which is now a hit animated series on KidsWB).

The founder of Milestone and co-creator of the books is Dwayne McDuffie, a staff columnist at my website. He's also now the Story Editor/writer of Cartoon Network's Justice League cartoon (as well as producer/writer on Static Shock). His website is at http://www.dwaynemcduffie.com, and you can find some great info there.

Icon in particular was facinating. It concerned an alien who crash-landed in the 19th Century South, and was mistaken as a black man and sold into slavery.

TechTV recently did a feature on black superheroes, which can be found at http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/t...374015,00.html. A link to our article on blacks in comics can be found at the beginning of the webpage.

Interesting links BJacks. I still have my copy of Icon #1 as well as a pack of Milestone Comic Cards sitting in my room.

check out Captain America comic books

In the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams Green Arrow/Green Lantern series there was a famous scene where a black man asks Green Lantern why he hasn't done more for the white race, but it almost comes off as unintentionally racist in and of itself read today.

i would suggest cloak and dagger, but cloak, the black guy needed dagger, the white girl, to survive.

oh heck. i love cloak and dagger. i sugges them anyway!

Spawn is a black hero. Good few stories about racism throughout that series.

What about the WWII comics and how Japanese are referred to as "JAPS" or "Slant eyed Devils".

I don't remember any of them referring to Germans as "Krauts" or Italians as "Guidos".

I'm positive I have WWII-era comics where "Krauts" is used. Italians hardly played any role in WWII comics, so I wouldn't expect to see such a term appear.

You should check out some of the old British comics from the 1940's (Beano and Dandy, and still going strong today) They had one strip called Addie and Musso (Adolph and Mussolini) about them doing stupid stuff and getting their butts kicked by different Brits. More of a propaganda thing than anything else though.