THE MOVEMENT

1: “History will say there lived a great people—a black people—who injected new meaning into the veins of civilization” (King).

Hundreds of supporters greet Martin Luther King Jr. outside of a courthouse after his indictment for his participation in the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Bettman (1956).

“What had begun in Montgomery was beginning to happen all over the South” (Baldwin). A student movement emerged in Nashville in 1961. Rev. James Lawson’s workshops in nonviolence for students at Fisk, Tennessee A&M, and American Baptist College produced young leaders like Diane Nash who would play pivotal roles in the Freedom Rides and later campaigns of the movement. The convergence of Lawson, Nash, and King proved that nonviolent noncooperation in Montgomery was no coincidence or mere fluke: this—agapic love—was the revolutionary method organic to the Black proletariat’s struggle. It would become fundamental to the American revolutionary process. Eldred Reaney (1961).

2: “The Negro who will emerge out of this present struggle—whoever, indeed, this dark stranger may prove to be—will not be dependent, in any way at all, on any of the many props and crutches which help form our identity now. And neither will the white man” (Baldwin). Bob Adelman photographed the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as they conducted sit-ins, freedom rides, literacy campaigns, and voting preparation courses across the Deep South.

A woman in her backyard in Sumter, SC in CORE’s literacy and voter registration campaign (1962).

CORE student organizers prepared unregistered Black folk in Louisiana to vote for the first time during the 1963 Freedom Summer (1963).

Mew Soong Li, SCLC staff, working as part of the Citizenship Education Program (CEP) (1966).

Father-daughter organizers Jesse and Ethel Brooks (1966).

SCLC’s Dorothy Cotton with a student in the CEP (1966).

Septima Clark, CEP co-founder, guides the hand of a student (1966).

3: “I wish you had commended the Negro demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer, and their amazing discipline in the midst of the most inhuman provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes” (King). One of the most segregated cities in the U.S., Birmingham emerged as a focal point of struggle in 1963.

Birmingham church service. Steve Schapiro.

Children march in the Children’s Crusade on May 2, 1963. Over 1000 children skipped school to gather at the 16th Street Baptist Church—braving arrests, police dogs, and fire hoses. Bob Adelman.

Onlookers, including many parents of the children in the crusades, gather on the 16th Street Church steps, watching them sing hymns and wave picket signs. Bob Adelman.

​4: “The long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world” (King).

Demonstrators in front of a Freedom Summer Bus in Ohio. Steve Schapiro (1964).

Nighttime demonstration for the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, with images of slain civil rights workers Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman. Bob Adelman (1964).

Singing "We Shall Overcome" in a church rally. Jackson, Mississippi. Steve Schapiro (1965).

5:“When we marched on Montgomery, the Confederate flag was flying from the dome of the Capitol: this gesture can be interpreted as insurrection” (Baldwin). The march from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama in 1965 saw thousands, including Baldwin, march over multiple days under violent attacks.

Demonstration in Selma prior to the march. Bob Adelman.

Young people participating in the march. Bob Adelman.

Ralph Abernathy, James Forman, Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Jesse Douglas and John Lewis lead the march. Steve Schapiro.

Nuns at the march. Steve Schapiro.

The minister Rev. James Reeb marching with King at Selma. Reeb traveled to answer King’s nationwide call for clergy to join him after Bloody Sunday. He was brutally beaten to death by white segregationists the next day.

Marchers, cheered by cab drivers of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. Bob Adelman.

6: “That day, for a moment, it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance; perhaps we could make the kingdom real, perhaps the beloved community would not forever remain that dream one dreamed in agony” (Baldwin). The Black Freedom Struggle entered a new stage as it spread North to the entire country, challenged poverty head-on with the Poor People’s Campaign, and looked internationally to the peace and anti-colonial struggles. Climbing ever greater heights to face the interlinked triple evils of racism, poverty, and war, this stage fundamentally challenged the American imperialist state. Martin and the movement looked over the mountaintop—and then was crucified.

The King family and other civil rights activists look out from their South Side apartment. The 1966 Chicago Freedom Movement brought the struggle from the Deep South to the urban North.

King leads a 1967 anti-Vietnam war march in Chicago, a week before giving his decisive “Beyond Vietnam” speech which challenged the U.S. empire and called for positive peace.

King insisted on traveling to Memphis to support the 1,300 Black sanitation workers on strike in response to poor labor conditions. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Coretta Scott King, Harry Belafonte, Ralph Abernathy, and others, holding hands at Martin Luther King’s funeral in Memphis, 1968.

A woman mourns for Martin Luther King Jr. at his memorial service. Bob Adelman.

Coretta Scott King, along with Juanita and Ralph Abernathy, continued organizing the Poor People’s March in Washington D.C. directly after King’s assassination. Bob Fitch.

A young man at the Poor People's March. Bob Adelman.