March, a graphic novel about his work in the struggle for black rights, rockets to top of Amazon’s charts after president-elect derides him as ‘all talk, talk, talk’

Donald Trump’s attempt to discredit US politician and hero of the civil rights movement John Lewis in a series of tweets has backfired, propelling Lewis’s books to the top of the bestseller lists as dissent grew over the inauguration of the president-elect.

On Saturday, Trump criticised the Democrat congressman after Lewis told NBC News that he did not regard the incoming president as legitimate.

Within hours, two graphic novels and a memoir by Lewis took the top three spots on Amazon after Trump tweeted: “Congressman John Lewis should spend more time on fixing and helping his district, which is in horrible shape and falling apart.”

March, Lewis’s graphic novel about the US civil rights movement, shot from 451st place in the overall bestseller lists to No 1, while his memoir Walking the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement rose a vertiginous 8,699 places to No 2.

Further down the charts, his 2012 book Across That Bridge: Life Lessons and a Vision for Change, which recounted lessons learned as an activist, leapt from 34,480 to 175 in the overall bestseller list on Amazon.com and took top spot on the online bookseller’s philosophy of ethics and morality chart. All three were holding their places on Monday as fury over the tweets grew.

The third volume of March, written with Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell, was the first graphic novel to win a National Book Award when it was published in 2016. The trilogy tells the story of the struggle for equality through his own experiences as leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The youngest speaker at the March on Washington in 1963, the 75-year-old is the only surviving speaker who was on the Lincoln Memorial with Martin Luther King.

The congressman courted the president-elect’s ire when he told the US news channel NBC that he did not regard the recent election as legitimate and was not planning to attend Trump’s inauguration this Friday. “I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton,” he said.

In a typically robust series of tweets, Trump reacted to Lewis’s comments by accusing him of being “all talk, talk, talk – no action or results”. He added: “Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the US. I can use all the help I can get!”

Twitter users jumped to Lewis’s defence. As well as attacking Trump for impugning the veteran campaigner’s reputation, several other US politicians followed his lead and announced they would not attend the new president’s swearing-in.

“After reading classified Russian hacking doc & ‪@realDonaldTrump offensive tweets to ‪@repjohnlewis I will not be attending the Inauguration,” fellow congressman Mark Pocan tweeted.

In a 2013 interview about the first volume of March for Entertainment Weekly, Lewis said: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to do something about it.” Exhorting young people to protest peacefully, he added: “I say to young people today, whether it’s in New York or in Florida, if you see something, do something about it.”