Pictures That Made a Difference: The Civil Rights Movement

While working as a photojournalist for Birmingham, Alabama newspapers in the 1950s, Charles Moore captured images of legendary Civil Rights Movement leader Martin Luther King, Jr., which were distributed widely by the Associated Press and Life magazine. After this early success Moore traveled throughout the South, documenting civil rights protests and activists— and their brutal suppression by police. His photographs brought the struggle for civil rights in the South into the homes of Americans across the country. These images, which are by equal turns painful and poignant, are credited in part with helping shape public opinion and the eventual passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

-Ellen Alvord, Weatherbie Curator of Education and Academic Programs, Mount Holyoke College Art Museum (Sept. 2016)