This Light of Ours Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement

Leslie G. Kelen|Julian Bond|Clayborne Carson|Matt Herron|Charles E. Cobb Jr.

ISBN 10: 1496849566 / ISBN 13: 9781496849564

Published by University Press of Mississippi, 2023

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 903369276

Bibliographic Details

• Title: This Light of Ours Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496849566
• ISBN 13: 9781496849564
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

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 photographers who participated in the movement as activists with SNCC, SCLC, and CORE. 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.

About the Authors

Leslie G. Kelen is founder and executive director of the Center for Documentary Expression and Art. He is author or coauthor of several publications that combine the use of documentary photographs and interviews, including Sacred Images: A Vision of Native American Rock Art, Faces and Voices of Refugee Youth, Streaked with Light and Shadow: Portraits of Former Soviet Jews in Utah, and Missing Stories: An Oral History of Ethnic and Minority Groups in Utah.

Julian Bond (1940–2015) was chairman of the NAACP from 1998 to 2010. On Easter Weekend, 1960, he was one of several hundred students from across the South who helped to form SNCC, and shortly thereafter became SNCC’s communications director.

Clayborne Carson is professor emeritus of history and founding director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. He is also author of In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s.

Matt Herron (1931–2020) was an activist photographer whose photographs appeared in virtually every major picture magazine in the world. He curated the CDEA traveling exhibition This Light of Ours and directed Take Stock, an organization licensing the use of movement images for scholars and the media.

Charles E. Cobb, Jr., is a SNCC veteran, journalist, and professor. His latest book is This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.