Photography and the Civil Rights Movement
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Photography and the Civil Rights Movement
Thurs., February 24 * 10 PM ET / 7 PM PT on Clubhouse
This upcoming week in History Club, we’ll continue our collaboration with Flipboard with a Clubhouse event about photography and the Civil Rights movement, in recognition of Black History Month.
Photography was instrumental to the U.S. Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and critical to the formation of public memory about the movement.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) employed photographers to capture clashes and protests, distribute images of them widely, and frame events. In 1964, Martin Luther King described these visual media as "gigantic circling spotlights." As protests, marches and demonstrations continued throughout the decade, the imagery circulated around the world solidifying public pressure and support for the movement.
Our guests will be Dr. Martha Bouyer, director of the “Stony the Road We Trod” project, and Steven Murray, director of the Alabama Department of Archives & History.
Join us on Clubhouse Thursday night, Feb. 24 at 10pm ET. We’ll do a 1-on-1 conversation, followed by audience Q&A. (Add to calendar.)
Special thanks to Flipboard for sponsoring this conversation. History Club and Flipboard have teamed up to create a series of events and online storyboards.
Click here to view a special feature devoted to Civil Rights photography »
Below: A police dog attacks teenager Walter Gadsden in Birmingham, Alabama. Gadsden had not been part of any demonstrations that day; he had exited a bus moments earlier, turned a corner and was grabbed by a police officer. The photograph was taken by Associated Press photographer Bill Hudson on May 3, 1963. The image ran on the front page of the New York Times and other newspapers the following day.
See you on Clubhouse, Thursday, February 24 at 10 PM ET.
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