In the face of violent white supremacy, how should I respond?

It’s a hot day in August. A group of protesters gathers to demonstrate nonviolently against white supremacy. An iconic photograph is taken as the protesters kneel in prayer. A few minutes later, a vehicle deliberately plows into the group and strikes a young woman.

This scene, which occurred in Cairo, Illinois in 1962 during a protest outside of a racially segregated swimming pool, is depicted halfway through the second volume of March, the graphic novel trilogy co-written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin and illustrated by Nate Powell.

I had a lot to do when I came into the office this morning, but my eye kept veering toward the trilogy, which had been sitting on my desk for a few days. Given the hatred-driven violence this weekend in Charlottesville—and my inability to know how to respond as a white progressive Christian who both denounces white supremacy and benefits from it—I figured the least I could do was to glance at the first few pages of March, if for no other reason than to brush up on my knowledge of the history of the civil rights movement.