by Tom Mullaney
Every Chicagoan should visit the Field Museum to witness a troubling, highly-charged slice of American history, the kind they don’t cover in schools for fear of arousing
controversy. It is the museum’s exhibit of approximately 150 historic photos from 1955-68, the key period of the Civil Rights Movement.
Just as many Americans have felt revulsion over allegations of torture of terror suspects held at prisons in Cuba and Iraq, so too one may feel shame at the way blacks and their white supporters were treated in the South, starting with Rosa Parks’ infamous bus ride and ending with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968.
Most of the photos come from a collection at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Others are from private collections. Some photos are being shown for the first time. It is the largest exhibition of civil rights photos organized by a museum in over 20 years.
As one moves through the show, this viewer found it hard to fathom that the scenes depicted—a Greyhound bus set ablaze with blacks on board, Ku Klux Klan members in full regalia tormenting marchers, the “Mississippi Burning” murders of three freedom riders and Dr. King being manhandled by an arresting officer—are less than 50 years old.
The courage and fierce resistance of the protesters, predominantly black but joined by white ministers and college students, is palpable. What is also visceral and deeply affecting is the courage and determination displayed by photographers and reporters who covered the struggle for racial equality. They risked their lives in doing so.
Such photographers as Gordon Parks, Steve Schapiro (whose image of a young MLK -- at right -- is pictured here), Bob Adelman, Declan Haus and, above all, Chicagoan Danny Lyon and Charles Moore, a staff photographer for the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser.
Exhibit attendees can see King in his prime as well as his associates, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis, now a Congressman, and an orator second only to Dr. King.
Also included are a special series of 12 photos taken by Eric Etheridge. They are from his portraits of over 100 Freedom Riders who rode down from the North to march from Selma to Montgomery and other Southern cities.
The exhibition was made possible by the Chicago Urban League. Its president and CEO, Cheryl Jackson, made it part of the bid she submitted in support of being chosen to host the 2009 National Urban League Convention in Chicago, which held its opening gala earlier this week at the museum.
Ms. Jackson says the exhibit should teach us that the struggle is not over and remains relevant. The Sixties fight was for racial equality while now it’s for economic equality.
“The exhibit is an important reminder that we are a nation of overcomers,” says Ms. Jackson. “We overcame slavery, Jim Crow, and the right to vote. If we overcome those things, we can deal with this economic meltdown.”
The exhibition is up through September 7.
Photo © Steve Schapiro courtesy of the Field Museum
Every Chicagoan should visit the Field Museum to witness a troubling, highly-charged slice of American history, the kind they don’t cover in schools for fear of arousing
controversy. It is the museum’s exhibit of approximately 150 historic photos from 1955-68, the key period of the Civil Rights Movement.
Just as many Americans have felt revulsion over allegations of torture of terror suspects held at prisons in Cuba and Iraq, so too one may feel shame at the way blacks and their white supporters were treated in the South, starting with Rosa Parks’ infamous bus ride and ending with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on April 4, 1968.
Most of the photos come from a collection at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Others are from private collections. Some photos are being shown for the first time. It is the largest exhibition of civil rights photos organized by a museum in over 20 years.
As one moves through the show, this viewer found it hard to fathom that the scenes depicted—a Greyhound bus set ablaze with blacks on board, Ku Klux Klan members in full regalia tormenting marchers, the “Mississippi Burning” murders of three freedom riders and Dr. King being manhandled by an arresting officer—are less than 50 years old.
The courage and fierce resistance of the protesters, predominantly black but joined by white ministers and college students, is palpable. What is also visceral and deeply affecting is the courage and determination displayed by photographers and reporters who covered the struggle for racial equality. They risked their lives in doing so.
Such photographers as Gordon Parks, Steve Schapiro (whose image of a young MLK -- at right -- is pictured here), Bob Adelman, Declan Haus and, above all, Chicagoan Danny Lyon and Charles Moore, a staff photographer for the Montgomery (AL) Advertiser.
Exhibit attendees can see King in his prime as well as his associates, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy and John Lewis, now a Congressman, and an orator second only to Dr. King.
Also included are a special series of 12 photos taken by Eric Etheridge. They are from his portraits of over 100 Freedom Riders who rode down from the North to march from Selma to Montgomery and other Southern cities.
The exhibition was made possible by the Chicago Urban League. Its president and CEO, Cheryl Jackson, made it part of the bid she submitted in support of being chosen to host the 2009 National Urban League Convention in Chicago, which held its opening gala earlier this week at the museum.
Ms. Jackson says the exhibit should teach us that the struggle is not over and remains relevant. The Sixties fight was for racial equality while now it’s for economic equality.
“The exhibit is an important reminder that we are a nation of overcomers,” says Ms. Jackson. “We overcame slavery, Jim Crow, and the right to vote. If we overcome those things, we can deal with this economic meltdown.”
The exhibition is up through September 7.
Photo © Steve Schapiro courtesy of the Field Museum
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