Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama five years ago, the civil rights pioneer John Lewis was presented with a rather different sort of honour in San Diego this weekend: an Eisner award for the second volume in his graphic novel memoir, March.

Tracing the story of how the US congressman became a central figure in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, March: Book Two won the prestigious Eisner prize for best reality-based work. Illustrated by Nate Powell and co-written with Andrew Aydin, the first two books in the series have topped the New York Times bestseller lists and won plaudits from luminaries including Bill Clinton, who called Lewis “a resounding moral voice in the quest for equality for more than 50 years”.

The win makes Lewis the first sitting congressman to win an Eisner. “I am delighted and overjoyed that the story of March is so pleasing to so many people all over America,” Lewis told the Washington Post. “This is a great honour, to receive an Eisner with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell.”

Aydin, Lewis’s staff aide and co-author, told the Washington Post that he was overwhelmed by the win. “For the comics community to honour us this way means they believe we did justice to the story of John Lewis, his friends and colleagues in the movement, and the sacrifices of so many. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who worked to help us make these books and get them out into the world,” he said.

Lewis, who later led a children’s march at Comic-Con, “bounded from his seat and ran to the stage at the announcement” of his win, reported Publishers Weekly, before praising Aydin and Powell for getting “the boy from Troy [Alabama]” – as he was described by Martin Luther King when they first met – “to write a comic book”. The third and final volume in the series is out in August.

The Will Eisner comic industry awards are the most prestigious honours in this field. Along with Lewis, winners this year included Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s Paper Girls, which took the Eisner for best new series, Jason Aaron and Jason Latour’s Southern Bastards, which won the best continuing series, and Dan Slott and Michael Allred’s Silver Surfer #11, which won the Eisner for best single issue. Ruins by Peter Kuper, set amidst political unrest in Oaxaca, Mexico, took the prize for best new graphic novel, while writers including Moomins creator Tove Jansson and Simpsons creator Matt Groening were inducted into the Eisner hall of fame.