We Shall Overcome: Pictures from the American Cival Rights Era

The Smithsonian Institution’s exhibit We Shall Overcome: Photographs from the American Civil Rights Era ran from August 3 through September 29 at Orchards Mall in Benton Township. The exhibit and associated programs were free and open to the general public. The exhibit’s dynamic photographs highlighted key elements and personalities of the Civil Rights Era in American history from 1954 to 1968. We Shall Overcome offered viewers an opportunity to consider our nation’s current struggles and divisions through the window of this critical phase in our not-so-distant past.

Additional information follows the photo gallery below.

Click here for a schedule of programs associated with the exhibit.

During America’s Civil Rights Era, the fight for equal rights took many forms, including boycotts, sit-ins and marches. Photographers contributed to the movement by relaying the struggle to every corner of the nation. We Shall Overcome brings these images together. The exhibition explores the role of several prominent American photographers in documenting one of the most decisive eras in American history. The eighty black-and-white photographs in the exhibition focus on key events and personalities in the Civil Rights Era.

Works in We Shall Overcome are by some of America’s most thoughtful and gifted photographers, including former LIFE magazine photographers Gordon Parks and Charles Moore; Magnum photographers Bob Adelman and Leonard Freed; then-staff photographer for the Nation of Islam, Robert Sengstacke; and Black Star photographers Matt Herron and Bob Fitch.

Drawn from the personal collections of the artists, these works bring the viewer into the presence of the people and events of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. The images reflect both the power and beauty of the photographic medium when used as a tool for social change.

The exhibition juxtaposes the striking images with the words of James Baldwin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other Movement participants. These quotations provide viewers with an opportunity to examine the Civil Rights Movement through the experiences of those directly involved with the struggle.

Photographers in We Shall Overcome captured various aspects of the Civil Rights Movement. Leonard Freed’s images represent his perceptions of racial conflict in America at the time of his return to the United States after several years abroad. Bob Adelman’s photographs document voter registration activities in the Deep South. Matt Herrons’ pictures consider direct action by young people in the Movement. Bob Fitch’s work chronicles grassroots organizing, primarily in association with the efforts of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Charles Moore’s images reveal incidents of extreme violence. Robert Sengstacke’s images of the separatist response of the Nation of Islam sharply contrast with his photographs of other civil rights activists. Gordon Park’s works are drawn from an assignment by LIFE magazine during 1963 when Parks was traveling with Malcolm X. The exhibition ends with a selection of photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr., taken by each of the photographers.

We Shall Overcome was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) and curated by Robert Phelan, an art historian, museum curator and former director of CREED Photos (a database project for civil rights). Following its showing at Orchards Mall, the exhibition will travel to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum in Austin, Texas, then continue touring nationwide through 2004.

Each year, SITES shares the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside of Washington, DC. One of the Smithsonian’s four National Programs, SITES makes available a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown not only in museums but wherever people live, work and play: libraries, science centers, historical societies, community centers, botanical gardens, schools and shopping malls. In 2002, SITES will celebrate 50 years of connecting Americans to their shared cultural heritage.

The exhibit and associated programs are made possible in part by a grant from United Way of Southwest Michigan and the Frederick S. Upton Foundation. This activity is also supported by the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo and is a program of the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.