Wednesday, June 10, 2020

Social Justice By Way Of Comic Books

The waves of protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd by police have produced a lot of passion towards finally addressing and rectifying the inequality faced by the people of color from the police and the justice system as large. 

This is, of course, not a new problem which is part of the current frustration being expressed in those protests. The death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, at the hands of a white police officer is just the latest example of that inequality, that injustice that people of color have experienced in recent weeks and going back generations. 

Stan Lee was speaking out against racial inequality and injustice decades ago in the pages of Marvel Comics. Stan's Soapbox was a regular fixture in the Marvel Bullpen Bulletins page, a regular feature in Marvel Comics to promote current and future projects.  Mostly Stan used his soapbox to extoll the wonders of some particular new Marvel project but sometimes, his attention would turn to other matters. 

Like this. 




I'm not sure of the exact date for the piece above, some time between the late 1960s to the sometime in the 1970s. 

An even earlier call for tolerance comes from the public service piece from 1949 when Batman had something to say.



It's sad that after all this time, there is still a necessity to speak out and protest against racial inequality and injustice.  

But this fight for equality, justice and freedom is not some new fad, not some cause of the moment. It is a long hard fought battle that is as worthy to be fought now as it was when Stan Lee wrote his soapbox nearly 5 decades ago or when Batman warned us in 1949 of the crackpot lies of those who would promote intolerance. 

Remember to be good to one another. 


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