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American VisualCultures

Edited by David Holloway and John Beck

CONTINUUMThe Tower Building11 York RoadLondon SEl 7NX

15 Easr 26rh StreetNew YorkNY 10010

© David Holloway, John Beck and contributors 2005

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced ortransmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrievalsystem, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 0-8264-6484-X (hardback)0-8264-6485-8 (paperback)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataAmerican visual cultures I edited by David Holloway and John Beck.

p. em.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-8264-6484-X - ISBN 0-8264-6485-8 (pbk)

1. Arts and society - United States. 2. Arts, American - 19th century.3. Arts, American - 20th century. I. Holloway, David, 1967-U. Beck,John, 1963-

NXI80.s6A437 2005700' .973--<lc22

2004061827

Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, ManchesterPrinted and bound in Great Britain by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire

Visualizing Political StruggleCivil Rights-era Photography

DEBORAH WILLIS

This essay examines photography's role in documenting Civil Rights protests in a variety offorms during rhe 1950s and 1960s. It explores how photography motivated the general publicand aroused public opinion, and it analyses how photography informed social consciousness.In viewing the photographs of social protest activities and Civil Rights leaders discussed in thisessay, we may tend to believe that, to varying degrees the medium of photography is an open·ended and didactic form of visual expression; and, further, that the photograph merely authen­ticates the written word. But as Roland Barthes writes in Camera Lucida,

The photograph does not necessarily say what is no longer, but only and for certain whathas been. This distinction is decisive. In front of a photograph, our consciousness does notnecessarily take the nostalgic path of memory (how many photographs are outside of theindividual time), but for every photograph existing in the world, the path of certainty: thephotograph's essence is to ratify what it represents. (Barthes 1981: 85)

These photographs remind us that our actions today will affect the future, just as the actionsof courageous individuals during the Civil Rights movement changed the world. They alsoremind us that photographers played a crucial role by documenting the varied experiences ofliving in a segregated society, and calling upon it to change.

Photographers had begun to record and to publicize the large issues concerning the raceproblem, such as racial violence against blacks and the struggle for equal rights for allAmericans, and to document protest movements even at the beginning of the twentieth century.Some of the earliest known protest photographs include images of NAACP demonstrationsagainst lynchings, Jim Crow laws, Ku Klux Klan rallies, and protesters outside of federal andstate government buildings calling for the end of segregation in the 1930s and 1940s. The useof smaller hand cameras and faster film stock drastically changed this type of reporting, andeventually these tools became widely used by photographers covering the marches, raBies andprotesters. By the early 1950s, the concept of both the modern Civil Rights movement andphotography began to change in America, the coverage of organized mass demonstrations, boy­cotts, and resistance movements founded by dedicated black and white Americans against JimCrow laws throughout the South establishing what Vicki Goldberg (1991) refers to as 'a newpattern for the coverage of social activism'. For the first time, photographers told the story ofa mass protest movement in the United States. News and documentary photographers focusedtheir cameras on Civil Rights activities, including demonstrations, sit-ins and protests inSouthern cities. At the same time, black picture magazines like Our World, Flash, and Ebonyflourished with the same mission as more widely distributed pub~ons such as Life and Look,which were introduced as all-picture format magazines in the mid-1930s, and which had

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Visualizing Political Struggle

become the most popular news magazines in the history of photojournalism. Throughout the1950s and 1960s, a racially diverse group of photographers made compassionate and terrify­ing photographs of the harsh realities of the struggle for the right to vote, fair employment andequal opportunities.

The decade of the 19505 was pivotal for the initial visualizing of the movement.Photographers focused on events like the cases brought before the Supreme Court, such as theBrown v. Board of Education ofTopeka, Kansas ruling in 1954 and the attempt at widespreadschool desegregation; the murder of young Emmett Till in 1955; boycotts led by both local cit­izens and the black clergy; and the activities of Southern resistance groups such as the CitizensCouncil and the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund. Photography documented the Jim Crow signsfor 'colored' waiting rooms, seating areas, drinking fountains and restaurants. The segregatedsigns, one room or fountain marked 'colored' and the other 'white' demonstrated simply, invisual form, what it meant to be a member of the privileged class and the underclass in theAmerican South.

During the most active years of the Civil Rights movements, a significant number of photo­graphers worked to document the struggles, achievements, and tragedies of the freedom move­ment. Many travelled from the North and a small number photographed within their owncommunities. South Carolina-based photographer Cecil Williams recalls, 'When I started free­lancing for Jet, the Afro-American, The Crisis, and the Associated Press, black weekly news­papers relied heavily on freelancers like myself to cover news from the black perspective becausewire news coverage was sparse . .. As tragic as these circumstances were, it was this backgroundand dimate that made me not only a photographer, but a chronicler of the most significanthumanitarian movement in the history of humankind' (Williams 1995: 4). When the headlinesaddressed the ending of legalized segregation on public buses, following a Supreme Court rulingprompted by the year-long Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-6, photographers such as CharlesMoore, Ernest Withers, Gordon Parks, Richard Saunders, Bert Miles and Moneta Sleet, Jr. rec­ognized the historical significance of the time and their roles as recorders and interpreters of themovement.

When Emmett Till, a young black teenager from Chicago visiting Money, Mississippi, wasbrurally beaten and killed in 1955 for whistling at a white girl, his swollen body was photo­graphed and published inlet magazine. Photography played a significant role in Till's story thatsummer, both prior to his murder and aher:

He had broughr with him photos from his junior high school graduation in Chicago, whichshowed both black and white students. Seeing that the Southern children were impressed,Emmett commented that one of the white girls in the photographs was his girl friend. Thisprompted one of the local boys to say, <Hey, there's a white girl in that store there. I bet youwon't go in there and talk to her.' Calling the boy's bluff, Emmett went in, bought some candy,and as he was leaving the store, said to the woman, 'Bye, baby'. (Wilkinson 1997: 84)

The all-white, all-male jury found rhe whire male defendants who had killed Till not guilty.Memphis-born Ernest Withers was hired as a photographer for the Emmett Till murder trial,

which lasted a week. After the trial, Withers returned to Memphis where he co-published anddistributed a pamphlet on the murder trial titled Complete Photo Story of Till Murder Case. Itwas sold for one dollar a copy. This act revealed Withers' concern for preserving the memoryof this horrific experience. As he wrote in the circular, <we are not only depicting the plight ofan individual Negro, but rather of life as it affects all Negroes in the United Srates. In brief weare presenting this photo story not in an attempt to stir up racial animosities or to question theverdict in the Till Murder Case, but in the hope that this booklet might serve to help our nationdecide itself to seeing that such incidents need not occur again' (Withers et al. 2000: 60).

The 1960s provided many opportunities for photojournalists to record the Civil Rightsmovement in the United States. Its activities we~nfolding on the streets in virtually every ruraltown and urban city in the American South, with organizations such as the Student Nonviolent

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Part 3: 1963-1980

Fig. 25. Protesters at Match on Washington. c. 1963. Photograph by Jack T. Franklin.Courtesy of the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress fOt Race Equality (CORE), and SouthernChristian Leadership Conference (SCLC) leading the way. The tragic death of four little girls ina church bombing at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963 was docu­mented by photographers. During the same year, throughout the country men, women, andyoung people were organizing busloads of Americans who were planning to attend the Marchon Washington in August, the largest Civil Rights demonstration in American history. Throughphotographers' coverage of the day the contemporary viewer is privileged to see how effectivethe March on Washington was. Photographs not only captured the spirit of the moment, theyalso served as a visual narrative of events such as the initial organizing meetings for the March.Photographers captured images of the participants who travelled by buses, trains and cars, aswell as those who walked and joined hands to help stage the massive demonstration in thenation's capital (Figures 25 and 26). These moving visual testaments of the event include formaland informal studies of the American people, whether leaders, celebrities, or the people whosevoices demanded to be heard. Images of celebrities such as Harry Belafonte and James Baldwincommitted to the movement and the ideals of the democratic doctrine show them standing withevetyday people (Figutes 27 and 28). There were intense crowd shots and close-up porttaits ofproud and determined people.

In other areas of America, photography and television news vividly told the story of FreedomRiders travelling throughout the South, and the murder of.-three Civil Rights workers, JamesEarl Chaney, Michael Schwetner and Andrew Goodmaff,'in Mississippi, in June 1964. By themid-1960s, the protest movements had become a national crusade for human rights for all

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Visualizing Political Struggle

Fig. 26. View of Washington M~ent and Protesters at March on Washington. c. ] 963.Photograph by Jack T. Franklin. Courtesy of the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

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Part 3: 1963-1980

Fig. 27. james Baldwin, Harry and julie Belafonte, at March on Washington. c. 1963.Photograph by jack T. Franklin. Courtesy of the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

oppressed people. ewspapers and magazines throughout the world had published grippingimages of racial hatred and police brutaliry in Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery, Oakland andLos Angeles, and of racial unrest in cities across the Unites States.

As well as its coverage of the integrationist struggle for Civil Rights, during the 1960s photo­graphy also recorded the emergence of, and was used by, the Nation of Islam (NOI). GordonParks recalls his photographs of Civil Rights activism in this way.

In 1963 the turbulent black revolution was steadily building and Life magazine wanted tocover it. The Muslims and Malcolm X, their fiery spokesman, had become the magazine'sfirst target. Other forces were slowly gathering - the Black Panthers, Huey Newtown,Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, andllo"bby Seale would come later to stridently berateracism throughout the nation. Infiltration into their volatile camps by a white publication

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Visualizing Political Struggle

Fig. 28. Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poirier and Sammy Davis, Jr. at March on Washington.c. 1963. Photograph by Jack T. Franklin. Courtesy of the African American Museum inPhiladelphia.

rhat was held suspect seemed impossible. Wharever artempts the magazine had made hadfallen flat. It seems reasonable that at the time, Life's editors would question my ability toreport objectively about black militancy. I was black and my sentiments lay in the heatt ofblack fury sweeping the country. (Parks 1997: 240)

Cameramen from television stations, newspapers and magazines were on hand to documentthese events, demonstrations and conditions that impacted on the conscience of America. Thesmall triumphs in local communities and the disappointments in the larger cities are foreveretched into our memories primarily because of the camera lens. The impact of the movementcaused committed photographers such as Jack Franklin) Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson, R. C.Hickman, Leonard Freed, Benedict Fernandez, Roz Payne, Beuford Smith, Jonathan Eubanks,Roy DeCarava and Parks to document both the brutalizing events and the triumphant rallies.SNCC photographers such as Doug Harris, Elaine Tomlin, Bob Fletcher, and Matt Heron wereat the forefront, documenting the voter registration drives in the South.

Many families experienced episodes of hostile confrontation that intensified during the yearsof the social protest movements. Black families and white sympathizers were killed, hosed,jailed, and subjected to Jim Crow laws across the United States. Photographers witnessing theseevents created a new visual consciousness for the American public, establishing a visual lan­guage of 'testifying' about individual and collective experience. During this difficult andcomplex time,po'tographers sought to create a collective visual memory that would empower

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Part 3: 1963-1980

communities, while at the same time provide evidence of their fears, struggles, defeats, goalsand victoties. The photographs they made allow the viewer to look critically ar rhe complex­ities experienced by the leaders, followers and communities they documented.

They also testify to the complex experience of the photographers themselves. Curator SrevenKasher asserts that 'some photojournalists covering the movement realized that they weferecording crucial moments of a nation in transition, and they were inspired by that prescienceof historical significance. Some, even in the South, were angered by the scenes of racist injus·rice that they witnessed and came to suppOrt the calise of civil rights, insinuating that supportinto rheir pictures' (Kasher 1998: 12). Photographer Bruce Davidson, for example, recalls anevent from the Civil Righrs movemenr rhar affected him deeply and personally:

In rhe spring of 1965, I returned to the Sourh, joining the Selma march in Alabama.Hundreds of people were marching the fifty miles from Selma to Montgomery, the statecapital. There were reporters, press, TV crews, helicopters, police and the National Guard,making the event seem like a parade. As I walked with the marchers, I photographed rhemby rhemselves and when they stopped to rest. I took picrures of them looking straight inrothe camera. They confronted an invisible audience with proud, determined looks. During thenight that the march ended, Viola Liuzza, a white civil rights worker from Detroit andmorher of four children, was killed by a shorgun blasc through her car windshield. The nexrmorning I saw the bloodstained seat, shallered glass fragments and skid marks whete hercar had gone off the road. The violence in the South had reached into me deeper rhan mypersonal pain. (Davidson 1978: 12)

Davidson's photographs capture and revisit such moments of tragedy and hate, determinationand strength. Working on this series of photographs, he confronted many issues about the roleof the photographer in documenting violence, demonstrations, and defiance. Davidson's keenattention to environmental detail and human gesture encourage us to add his images to our col­lective memories. Photographs of his such as the one of a woman centrally positioned betweenpolicemen, her arm twisted and the movie marquee in the background reading 'Damned theDeviant', challenge and reinterpret what we've learned in the past; through images such as thesewe gain a broader understanding today of the determination of young black and whiteAmericans in the years berween 1960 and 1965.

Davidson's photographs during the 1960s depict rhe tragedy of hate as well as the determi­nation of the community and the strength of its leaders. His culturally imbued images are simul­taneously affirming and disarming. A phorographer working during a tumultuous period ofAmerican history, Davidson focused his camera on the seemingly small moments that changedrhe shape and form of rhe Civil Rights movemenr. His photograph rells a compelling story aboUlcommunity pride and survival, work, love, and self-determination. These small moments gavevoice to the continued frustrations of the local communities. Davidson shows us that there ismore to the Civil Rights movement than the violent and racially charged images we so often see.

Danny Lyon was another photographer who helped create a new visual consciousness forthe American public during the Civil Rights movement. As Lyon recoums, about his experiencein Albany, Georgia,

Smoking a corncob pipe, drifting in and our of the southern accent he had picked up inMississippi, [SNCC executive secretary James Forman] was serious, extremely polite, andalways under pressure. Forman treated me like he treated most newcomers. He put me towork. 'You got a camera? Go inside the courthouse. Down at the back they have a big watercooler for whites and next to it a little bowl for Negroes. Go in there and take a picture ofthat.' With Forman's blessing, I had a place in the civil rights movement that Jwould occupyfor the next two years. James Forman would direct me, protect me, and at times fight for aplace for me in the movement. He is directly responsible for my pictures existing at all. (Lyon1992:30) _____

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Lyon's photograph of the water cooler and bowl plainly depicts the horrific reality for blackpeople in Albany, Georgia. The 'white' water fountain is larger, free flowing with a quick switchof the dial; while the drinking water fountain for the black man, woman, or child, short or tall,was the size of a small bowl that appears to be not even three feet from the floor. As the perfectvisual metaphor for 'Jim Crow', this photograph, like many others of its type, helped mobilizethe protest movement.

In 1969 Ebony photographer Moneta Sleet, Jr. became the first black photographer to winthe coveted Pulitzer Prize in photography for his photograph of Mrs Coretta Scott King and herdaughter at the funeral oEDr Martin Luther King, following King's assasination in April 1968.Sleet first met Dr King, then a 28 year old Atlanta minister who was emerging as the leader ofthe Civil Rights movement, while on assignment in 1956. Their association had flourished asthe movement dominated the black press, with Sleet covering Dr King receiving the Nobel PeacePrize in Sweden in 1964 and the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965. Althoughemployed by a monthly magazine, Ebo"y, Sleet was eligible for the Pulitzer because his phoro­graph of Mrs King was used by a wire service and published in daily newspapers throughoutthe country. Sleet's contribution to photojournalism is his extensive documentation of themarches, meetings, and rallies of the Civil Rights movement, focusing on people singing spiri­tuals while demonstrating and marching. Coverage of the fledgling Civil Rights movement hadgiven Ebony's sister publication, jet, its reputation and in the early years his photographsappeared in both.

Photography and photographers such as these were instrumental in galvanizing youngpeople, motivating cultural change and defining the significance of the struggle for human andcivil rights that eventually forced the federal government into creating laws against racial dom­ination and discrimination. Photographs of anonymous Americans and leading figures such asMartin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X marching, protesting, participating in sit-ins andattending rallies, showed the world that blacks were indeed fighting back, and depicted the newSouthern black as rebellious and deviant.

Charles Moore's photographs of Martin Luther King's arrest for loitering, in Alabama in1958, show graphic evidence of this new black citizen. In one, Dr King, wearing a hat and suit,is jostled by police officers. Dr King looks directly at the camera and his gaze focuses on theviewer. This intersection of gazes is both unsettling and fixed, Dr King negotiating this momentof powerlessness to one of empowerment as result. The image bears visual testimony to DrKing's own observation that 'The tension which we are witnessing in race relations in the Southtoday is to be explained in part by the revolutionary change in the Negro's evaluation of himself.. . You cannot understand the bus protest in Montgomery without understanding that thereis a New Negro in the South' (quoted in Morris 1984: 106). During this period of black self­consciousness and radicalization, black photographers and black artists responded and contrib­uted to this politicized cultural climate with acts of visual self-representation and newexpressions of black pride and identity. These artists organized exhibitions of black art thatexplored physical beauty, black political power and their African heritage. The term 'black' wasitself transgressive, and it became a positive self-definition for many African Americans.

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