Victory. Stand! is a wonderful graphic novel that tells the true story of Tommie Smith, an U.S. Olympic gold medal winner and world record setting runner. The book starts with Tommie as a young boy, one of twelve children, born and raised in Acworth, Texas before his sharecropping family had to move to California to survive. At the time it was a move Tommie neither understood nor wanted, but it proved to be pivotal, or life changing, for him.
Fast forward to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, where gold-medal-winning Smith protested treatment of Blacks in America by raising his black-gloved fist for his nation's anthem. From there he was banned from competition, Olympic and otherwise, for many years. Arguably the fastest man alive was no longer welcome to participate in his sport. Before NFL star Colin Kaepernick took a knee on the sideline during the same national anthem just a few years ago (and who was also unofficially banned from playing professional football again!), Smith used his status to show the world that everything in America was not what it appeared.
Long term readers of this blog know that I (and Violet before me) don't read a lot of graphic novels, but with that genre really taking off in the last couple of years, it's hard not to (as there are so many compelling ones being created!). That said, I am not a graphic novel connoisseur, or expert, by any means. But I will say the artwork in this book is some of the best I've seen! It fit the story so perfectly, and added to Smith's life as it unfolded across the pages. Combined with the compelling story being told, this was a difficult book to put down...until I finished it, and I wished there had been more. Graphic novel fans, and fans of social and American history, read this! It's first rate! 5 paws!
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