cover image The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68

The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954-68

Steven Kasher. Abbeville Press, $45 (255pp) ISBN 978-0-7892-0123-2

The civil rights movement has produced enduring images, and the famous ones are collected here: separate (and unequal) white and black water fountains, police dogs on the streets of Birmingham, Martin Luther King proclaiming ""I Have a Dream,"" Memphis strikers with their ""I Am a Man"" placards. As New York City photographer Kasher observes, ""No other American pictures radiate so brightly a collective passion for justice."" This book, which collects some 150 black-and-white photos, is indeed a history, offering many lesser-known images that also resonate. See legendary organizer Septima Clark lead older women in a citizenship class; a bespectacled Elizabeth Eckford, one of the ""Little Rock Nine,"" walk stoically ahead of jeering white students; Julian Bond pose with fellow SNCC volunteers, seemingly too young to help change history; and a Mississippi-delta organizing house that has painted the word Freedom on a cross burned by the Klan. Kasher's chapter introductions are lucid overviews of the movement, while the captions--some of which reproduce the original, stilted wire-service captions--are also effective and informative. A moving tribute. Author tour. (Oct.)