For all the world to see
Subtitle: visual culture and the struggle for civil rights
By: Maurice Berger ; foreword by Thulani Davis
Contributors: International Center of Photography
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2010
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 207
ISBN-13: 9780300121315
Subjects: Civil rights movements; Visual communication; African Americans in mass media; Mass media; History
Description: In 1955, shortly after Emmett Till was murdered by white supremacists in Mississippi, his grieving mother distributed to the press a gruesome photograph of his mutilated corpse. Asked why she would do this, she explained that by witnessing with their own eyes the brutality of segregation and racism, Americans would be more likely to support the cause of racial justice. "Let the world see what I've seen," was her reply. The publication of the photograph inspired a generation of activists to join the civil rights movement.  Despite this extraordinary episode, the story of visual culture's role in the modern civil rights movement is rarely included in its history. This is the first comprehensive examination of the ways images mattered in the struggle, and it investigates a broad range of media including photography, television, film, magazines, newspapers, and advertising.  These images were ever present and diverse: the startling footage of southern white aggression and black suffering that appeared night after night on television news programs; the photographs of black achievers and martyrs in Negro periodicals; the humble snapshot, no less powerful in its ability to edify and motivate. In each case, the war against racism was waged through pictures, millions of points of light, millions of potent weapons that forever changed a nation. This book allows us to see and understand the crucial role that visual culture played in forever changing a nation.
Notes: "In collaboration with: Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland Baltimore County, National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C."

Related exhibition held at the International Center of Photography, New York, May 21-Sept. 12, 2010.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Foreword / by Thulani Davis; title: Introduction : weapons of choice; title: It keeps on rollin' along : the status quo; title: The new "new Negro" : the culture of positive images; title: Plates; title: "Let the world see what I've seen" : evidence and persuasion; title: Guess who's coming to dinner : broadcasting race; title: Epilogue : in our lives we are whole : the pictures of everyday life.