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4.6 Major Civil Rights Organizations
Bunk
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This linked excerpt highlights the fact that leaders of the NAACP, CORE, and SNCC saw great value in photographs as instruments of protest. The excerpt includes a quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr. who, prior to a major event, declared, “We have plenty of demonstrators…We need photographers.” After reading the excerpt and reflecting on King’s article on nonviolence (Required Source), write down, discuss, or simply think about answers to the following questions:
- Why did King and the leaders of the major civil rights organizations consider photographs so valuable? What distinct purposes did they serve?
- In what ways did photographs support King’s vision of nonviolent action?
If you click through to the full article, you will see several relevant photographs. Can you find specific evidence for your insights in one or more of these images?
The Struggle in Black and White: Activist Photographers Who Fought for Civil Rights. None of these iconic photographs would exist without the brave photographers documenting the civil rights movement. Hunter Oatman-Stanford via Collectors Weekly on October 7, 2014