Portraits in Courage: Icons of the Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s-60s was a heroic time in American history. This timely show tells the story of the movement by focusing on its iconic figures. The 75 photos in the exhibition are original vintage press prints curated from the archives of several leading regional newspapers, i.e., the very prints that appeared on the front pages of the nation’s newspapers while these remarkable stories were unfolding in real time.

The show consists of “portraiture” only in the broadest sense of the word; the photos were carefully chosen for the depth of their psychological insight and emotional impact. Martin Luther King and his extraordinary family are featured in some depth, as are his heirs to leadership, notably Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, and Hosea Williams. But equally well represented is the “Black Power” strand in the movement, with Malcolm X and, after his death, Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael), H. Rap 

Brown, Angela Davis, and the Black Panthers.  Naturally, James Meredith’s March Against Fear is highlighted, as it was where the rallying cry “Black Power” was coined and these two competing visions of the future of the movement came into electric contact.

Like Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing, the show concludes with a rare original print depicting the one and only “summit meeting” between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X on March 26, 1964, less than a year before the latter’s assassination.
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Number of Photographs: 75
Frame sizes: 11x14 
Rental fee: $5750 for 8 weeks