Martin Luther King: Selma
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Art2art is proud to announce the show Martin Luther King: Selma, memorializing in 67 original vintage news photos one of the pivotal events in the Civil Rights movement which directly led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. With voting rights once again under attack, this moving and memorable exhibition is as timely as ever. And it is especially evocative that it features the actual press prints culled from the archives of several of the nation’s leading newspapers; i.e., the very prints that appeared on the front pages at the time and did so much to move the needle of public opinion.
The years 1955-1965 were a heroic decade in the Civil Rights struggle – and no state played a more momentous role than Alabama. Rosa Parks’s electrifying refusal to give up her seat to a white passenger on a segregated bus in December 1955 sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1956, led by two local pastors, Ralph Abernathy and Martin Luther King, Jr. |
This year-long effort culminated in the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. The federally-enforced integration of the University of Alabama in 1963 made national headlines and was the springboard from which segregationist Governor George Wallace would launch two third-party runs for the presidency. The nonviolent protests and business boycott in Birmingham that same year, which were met by Bull Connor’s fire hoses and police attack dogs, and ultimately by a church bombing that killed four young black girls, horrified Americans and galvanized support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The exhibit starts with a “preamble” section illustrating each of these seminal events with vintage icons of photojournalism.
One crucial civil right was not addressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964: the right to vote. Like the rest of the Deep South, Alabama had in place a variety of hurdles, including poll taxes and capriciously-applied literacy and Constitution comprehension tests, to deny the franchise to African-Americans, especially those below the poverty line. In Selma, the seat of Dallas County, fewer than 1% of adult blacks were registered to vote despite its being a majority black city. In 1963 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) established a presence in Selma and sought to register local blacks in a systematic way. They were thwarted by segregationists who held the levers of local power, most notably Sheriff Jim Clark. In January 1965 the SNCC was joined in Selma by the most prominent Civil Rights organization, Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and plans for a voting rights march were hatched.
The Selma to Montgomery March was actually a series of three marches conducted in March 1965, of which only the third reached its destination at the State House. The first attempt, on Sunday March 7, became known as Bloody Sunday as Sheriff Clark unleashed his nightstick-armed troopers on the unarmed crowd as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Horrifying images of this attack – original prints of which are featured in this exhibition – made the front pages of the nation’s newspapers; President Lyndon Johnson summoned George Wallace to the White House for a tongue-lashing and federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers. Soon after, Johnson convened a joint session of Congress and put forward the Voting Rights Act, calling Selma “a turning point in man's unending search for freedom” and paraphrasing King in declaring: “It is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.” The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965 – a direct result of King’s efforts in Selma, and an illustration of the power of unblinking photojournalism to effect real change in society.
Number of Photographs: 67
Frame sizes: 11x14 and 14x18 inches
Rental fee: $4850 for 8 weeks
One crucial civil right was not addressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964: the right to vote. Like the rest of the Deep South, Alabama had in place a variety of hurdles, including poll taxes and capriciously-applied literacy and Constitution comprehension tests, to deny the franchise to African-Americans, especially those below the poverty line. In Selma, the seat of Dallas County, fewer than 1% of adult blacks were registered to vote despite its being a majority black city. In 1963 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) established a presence in Selma and sought to register local blacks in a systematic way. They were thwarted by segregationists who held the levers of local power, most notably Sheriff Jim Clark. In January 1965 the SNCC was joined in Selma by the most prominent Civil Rights organization, Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and plans for a voting rights march were hatched.
The Selma to Montgomery March was actually a series of three marches conducted in March 1965, of which only the third reached its destination at the State House. The first attempt, on Sunday March 7, became known as Bloody Sunday as Sheriff Clark unleashed his nightstick-armed troopers on the unarmed crowd as they attempted to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Horrifying images of this attack – original prints of which are featured in this exhibition – made the front pages of the nation’s newspapers; President Lyndon Johnson summoned George Wallace to the White House for a tongue-lashing and federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect the marchers. Soon after, Johnson convened a joint session of Congress and put forward the Voting Rights Act, calling Selma “a turning point in man's unending search for freedom” and paraphrasing King in declaring: “It is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.” The Voting Rights Act was signed into law on August 6, 1965 – a direct result of King’s efforts in Selma, and an illustration of the power of unblinking photojournalism to effect real change in society.
Number of Photographs: 67
Frame sizes: 11x14 and 14x18 inches
Rental fee: $4850 for 8 weeks