HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI, VOTER REGISTRATION, 1964 ©1967 Matt Herron/Take Stock.
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frican-American citizens fill out voter registration forms (above) at the Forrest County Courthouse office of registrar. The sign on the wall indicates the ordeal of public exposure applicants faced, a tactic used to discourage black registration. Applicants could lose jobs, or even have their houses firebombed after their names were published in the local newspaper.
The photographers in the book, This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement, were activists — covering the momentous, day-to-day fight for justice from within the movement — in particular, the historic Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The photo above underscores the huge obstacles.
An exhibit based on This Light of Ours is now traveling across the country. It is slated for the Brooks Museum of Art (Memphis, Tenn.), Feb.May, 2015; the Florida Holocaust Museum (St. Petersburg, Fla.), Sept.-Dec. 2015; and the Allentown Museum of Art (Allentown, Pa.), Jan.-May 2016. The exhibit was developed by the Center for Documentary Expression and Art in Salt Lake City, Utah. Generous financial support came from Bruce Bastian, a longtime HRC National Board member, through the B.W. Bastian Foundation. The book is edited by Leslie Kehlen and published by University Press of Mississippi, Jackson, 2011. 36
EQUALITY
LATE SUMMER/EARLY FALL 2014