This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement
is a paradigm-shifting publication that presents the Civil Rights
Movement through the work of nine activist photographers-men and women
who chose to document the national struggle against segregation and
other forms of race-based disenfranchisement from within the movement.
Unlike images produced by photojournalists, who covered breaking news
events, these photographers lived within the movement-primarily within
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) framework-and
documented its activities by focusing on the student activists and local
people who together made it happen.
The core of the book is a selection of 150 black-and-white photographs,
representing the work of photographers Bob Adelman, George Ballis, Bob
Fitch, Bob Fletcher, Matt Herron, David Prince, Herbert Randall, Maria
Varela, and Tamio Wakayama. Images are grouped around four movement
themes and convey SNCC's organizing strategies, resolve in the face of
violence, impact on local and national politics, and influence on the
nation's consciousness.
The photographs and texts of
This Light of Ours
remind us that the movement was a battleground, that the battle was
successfully fought by thousands of "ordinary" Americans among
whom were the nation's courageous youth, and that the movement's moral
vision and impact continue to shape our lives.
Free and open to all.
Sponsors:
Institute
for Policy Studies
Lessons
of the 60's Project
NAACP
- Washington D.C. Branch
SNCC Legacy Project
WPFW
Teaching
for Change
Busboys
and Poets
