The Whole World Was Watching

Civil Rights-Era Photographs From the Menil Collection September 21, 2012 – January 6, 2013 / Lower Meier galleries / Des Moines Art Center

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This exhibition presents a selection of work from an extraordinary gift to the Menil Collection by Edmund Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil: 230 civil rights-era photographs.

The work, by Bob Adelman, Dan Budnik, Bruce Davidson, Elliott Erwitt, Leonard Freed, Danny Lyon, and Charles Moore captures the profound changes taking place in the United States beginning in the 1960s. It includes a wide variety of striking images taken at key moments in the struggle for civil rights in this country: the Freedom Rides, the March on Washington, the Selma to Montgomery March, the Birmingham Campaigns, along with other singular moments of struggle and protest. “The Whole World is Watching” was a phrase adopted by radical and leftist political groups in the 1960s to aggregate change, including anti-Vietnam war demonstrators, and student activists, like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. With the advent of television and the new ubiquity of printed media in everyday life, live broadcasts and the immediate dissemination of shocking images were playing a powerful role. The media was helping to finally shed light on violence, and racial injustice, and the American people could no longer turn their backs. The photographers in the show were involved with showing the world both the struggle, and victories of those fighting for civil rights. As photographers and artists, their work is not only important photojournalistic documentation but extraordinary works of art in themselves. With complex formal compositions and masterful plays with light and framing, they are indelible statements. The Whole World Was Watching: Civil Rights-Era Photographs from the Menil Collection is organized by Michelle White, Curator, Menil Collection. The Whole World Was Watching: Civil Rights-Era Photographs from the Menil Collection is organized by the Menil Collection, Houston. In Houston, this exhibition was realized through the generous support of Mark Wawro and Melanie Gray; Roy and Evelyn Nolen; The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation; Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.; Goldman, Sachs & Co.; Nina and Michael Zilkha; and the City of Houston.

Cover Singing group at the March on Washington. Basis for the SNCC poster titled “Now,” 1963 (Aug. 28) Washington, D.C. Danny Lyon from “Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement” © Danny Lyon/Magnum Photos. The Menil Collection, Houston, gift of Edmund Carpenter and Adelaide de Menil

Artist Biographies Bob Adelman (b. 1930) Brooklyn, lives in NYC

Leonard Freed (1929–2006) Brooklyn, New York

A photographer and social activist known for his historic coverage of the civil rights movement, Bob Adelman believed that the mistreatment of African Americans reflected the “most unAmerican” of qualities. His involvement with CORE (Congress for Racial Equality) and SNCC (Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) gave him an unusual levels of access in return. Following the movement was dangerous work, but Adelman managed to be at nearly every major event, from Birmingham to D.C., and everywhere in between. He had a front row seat to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” and attended Malcolm X’s funeral, witnessed riots, and walked in marches.

In 1962, Leonard Freed traveled to Germany to document the construction of the wall between East and West Berlin. Freed came across an African American soldier standing against the wall and was suddenly struck by his patriotic loyalty. During that encounter, Freed realized that in the United States, black people were struggling against racism and segregation, while in Germany an African American proudly defended the very same country denying him his rights. Upon his return to the states, Freed began to travel in the Northeast and throughout the south, capturing images of a segregated and racially entrenched society. Freed’s images offer a revelatory document of the language, imagery, and emotions experienced by a white man seeking to document racial disparity.

Dan Budnik (b. 1933) Long Island, lives in Tucson

Dan Budnik devoted much of his fifty-plus year career to photo portraiture of famous artists associated with the New York School, such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko. Budnik documented artists at work in the studio or in private moments that blurred the line between documentary and fiction. Although entrenched in the commercial photography world, Budnik persuaded Life to have him create a photo essay documenting the Selma to Montgomery march in the spring of 1965. Budnik trudged the streets with the demonstrators to record what is now regarded as the emotional and political peak of the civil rights movement. Bruce Davidson (b. 1933) Oak Park, Illinois

Bruce Davidson began photographing the street life in his hometown of Oak Park, Illinois at the age of 10. He soon found a local photographer who taught him lighting and printing techniques. While a student at Yale, Davidson produced a photo essay for his college thesis that documented the behind-the-scenes moments of college football players that was later published in Life magazine in 1955. From 1961 to 1965, Davidson’s work chronicled the civil rights movement in both the northern and southern parts of the country. The resulting images are the product of a humanist, not an activist, and the emotive reality presented, in small ways, helped “make visible what appears to be invisible.” Elliott Erwitt (b. 1928) Paris, France

Elliot Erwitt’s documentation is a natural reflection of his travels around the U.S. Compared to his commercial work, Erwitt’s civil rights photography is little discussed, probably due to the fact that the photos are just natural observations of the images of life. Erwitt’s photos document the movement across the country and span the late 40’s to the mid-70’s. Erwitt was not looking to capture the AfricanAmerican experience of the struggle for civil rights, but trying to find something interesting in the ordinary places outside of the protests and marches. He refuses to wear the activist badge for his photos of segregated drinking fountains, claiming “These are just things you see.You don’t have to look for anything. It is all there.”

Danny Lyon (b. 1942) Queens, New York

Danny Lyon’s first book, The Movement (1964) evolved from his position as staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and established his gritty photographeras-participant approach to photo journalism. Lyon’s involvement in the movement allowed him to take powerful behind-the-scenes shots of the courageous and idealistic civil rights leaders, as well as the hateful and violent segregationists. Over the next three decades, Lyon’s body of work continued to focus on the lives of the poor, ignored, and disenfranchised, including motorcycle gang members, inmates in Texas penitentiaries, and demolition derby drivers. As a journalist, Lyon sought out the truth with his camera and delivered it in the power of black and white prints to the American people. Charles Moore (1931– 2010) Hackleburg, Alabama

Charles Moore was born in Hackleburg, Alabama and later served in the Marines for three years as a photographer. He was originally trained in fashion photography from the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, California, which began his career as a newspaper photographer for two newspapers in Montgomery: The Montgomery Advertiser and The Montgomery Journal. Mr. Moore captured Dr. Martin Luther King being arrested in Montgomery, Alabama in 1958, and James Meredith integrating the University of Mississippi in the face of an angry mob in 1962. Moore, who was the son of a Baptist minister denounced racism and said he used his camera to continue the fight.

Civil Rights Movement Timeline*

President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, which states, “It is hereby declared to be the policy of the President that there shall be equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion, or national origin.”

nonviolent protests throughout the South. Six months later the original four protesters are served lunch at the same Woolworth’s counter. Student sit-ins would be effective throughout the Deep South in integrating parks, swimming pools, theaters, libraries, and other public facilities.

May 17, 1954

October 1, 1962

The Supreme Court rules on the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans., unanimously agreeing that segregation in public schools is unconstitutional. The ruling paves the way for large-scale desegregation. The decision overturns the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling that sanctioned “separate but equal” segregation of the races, ruling that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” It is a victory for NAACP attorney Thurgood Marshall, who will later return to the Supreme Court as the nation’s first black justice.

James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Violence and riots surrounding the incident cause President Kennedy to send 5,000 federal troops.

July 26, 1948

August 1955

Fourteen-year-old Chicagoan Emmett Till is visiting family in Mississippi when he is kidnapped, brutally beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Two white men, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, are arrested for the murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. They later boast about committing the murder in a Look magazine interview. The case becomes a cause célèbre of the civil rights movement. December 1, 1955

(Montgomery, Ala.) NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat at the front of the “colored section” of a bus to a white passenger, defying a southern custom of the time. In response to her arrest the Montgomery black community launches a bus boycott, which will last for more than a year, until the buses are desegregated Dec. 21, 1956. As newly elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., is instrumental in leading the boycott. January– February 1957

Martin Luther King, Charles K. Steele, and Fred L. Shuttlesworth establish the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, of which King is made the first president. The SCLC becomes a major force in organizing the civil rights movement and bases its principles on nonviolence and civil disobedience. According to King, it is essential that the civil rights movement not sink to the level of the racists and hatemongers who oppose them: “We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline,” he urges. September 1957

(Little Rock, Ark.) Formerly all-white Central High School learns that integration is easier said than done. Nine black students are blocked from entering the school on the orders of Governor Orval Faubus. President Eisenhower sends federal troops and the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the students, who become known as the “Little Rock Nine.” February 1, 1960

(Greensboro, N.C.) Four black students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College begin a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter. Although they are refused service, they are allowed to stay at the counter. The event triggers many similar

April 16, 1963

Martin Luther King is arrested and jailed during anti-segregation protests in Birmingham, Ala.; he writes his seminal “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” arguing that individuals have the moral duty to disobey unjust laws. May 1963

During civil rights protests in Birmingham, Ala., Commissioner of Public Safety Eugene “Bull” Connor uses fire hoses and police dogs on black demonstrators. These images of brutality, which are televised and published widely, are instrumental in gaining sympathy for the civil rights movement around the world. June 12, 1963

(Jackson, Miss.) Mississippi’s NAACP field secretary, 37-yearold Medgar Evers, is murdered outside his home. Byron De La Beckwith is tried twice in 1964, both trials resulting in hung juries. Thirty years later he is convicted for murdering Evers. August 28, 1963

(Washington, D.C.) About 200,000 people join the March on Washington. Congregating at the Lincoln Memorial, participants listen as Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. September 15, 1963

(Birmingham, Ala.) Four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins) attending Sunday school are killed when a bomb explodes at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, a popular location for civil rights meetings. Riots erupt in Birmingham, leading to the deaths of two more black youths. Summer 1964

The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a network of civil rights groups that includes CORE and SNCC, launches a massive effort to register black voters during what becomes known as the Freedom Summer. It also sends delegates to the Democratic National Convention to protest—and attempt to unseat—the official all-white Mississippi contingent. July 2, 1964

President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The most sweeping civil rights legislation since Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination of all kinds based on race, color, religion, or national origin. The law also provides the federal government with the powers to enforce desegregation.

August 4, 1964

April 11, 1968

(Neshoba Country, Miss.) The bodies of three civil-rights workers—two white, one black—are found in an earthen dam, six weeks into a federal investigation backed by President Johnson. James E. Chaney, 21; Andrew Goodman, 21; and Michael Schwerner, 24, had been working to register black voters in Mississippi, and on June 21, had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on speeding charges, incarcerated for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Ku Klux Klan, who murdered them.

President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing.

February 21, 1965

April 20, 1971

The Supreme Court, in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education, upholds busing as a legitimate means for achieving integration of public schools. Although largely unwelcome (and sometimes violently opposed) in local school districts, courtordered busing plans in cities such as Charlotte, Boston, and Denver continue until the late 1990s.

(Harlem, N.Y.) Malcolm X, black nationalist and founder of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is shot to death. It is believed the assailants are members of the Black Muslim faith, which Malcolm had recently abandoned in favor of orthodox Islam.

March 22, 1988

March 7, 1965

November 22, 1991

(Selma, Ala.) Blacks begin a march to Montgomery in support of voting rights but are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a police blockade. Fifty marchers are hospitalized after police use tear gas, whips, and clubs against them. The incident is dubbed “Bloody Sunday” by the media. The march is considered the catalyst for pushing through the voting rights act five months later. August 10, 1965

Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965, making it easier for Southern blacks to register to vote. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and other such requirements that were used to restrict black voting are made illegal. August 11–17, 1965

(Watts, Calif.) Race riots erupt in a black section of Los Angeles. September 24, 1965

Asserting that civil rights laws alone are not enough to remedy discrimination, President Johnson issues Executive Order 11246, which enforces affirmative action for the first time. It requires government contractors to “take affirmative action” toward prospective minority employees in all aspects of hiring and employment. October 1966

(Oakland, Calif.) The militant Black Panthers are founded by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale. April 19, 1967

Stokely Carmichael, a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coins the phrase “black power” in a speech in Seattle. He defines it as an assertion of black pride and “the coming together of black people to fight for their liberation by any means necessary.” The term’s radicalism alarms many who believe the civil rights movement’s effectiveness and moral authority crucially depend on nonviolent civil disobedience. April 4, 1968

(Memphis, Tenn.) Martin Luther King, at age 39, is shot as he stands on the balcony outside his hotel room. Escaped convict and committed racist James Earl Ray is convicted of the crime.

Overriding President Reagan’s veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which expands the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds. After two years of debates, vetoes, and threatened vetoes, President Bush reverses himself and signs the Civil Rights Act of 1991, strengthening existing civil rights laws and providing for damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. April 29, 1992

(Los Angeles, Calif.) The first race riots in decades erupt in southcentral Los Angeles after a jury acquits four white police officers for the videotaped beating of African American Rodney King. June 21, 2005

The ringleader of the Mississippi civil rights murders (see Aug. 4, 1964), Edgar Ray Killen, is convicted of manslaughter on the 41st anniversary of the crimes. October 24, 2005

Rosa Parks dies at age 92. January 30, 2006

Coretta Scott King dies of a stroke at age 78. February 2007

Emmett Till’s 1955 murder case, reopened by the Department of Justice in 2004, is officially closed. The two confessed murderers, J. W. Milam and Roy Bryant, were dead of cancer by 1994, and prosecutors lacked sufficient evidence to pursue further convictions. May 10, 2007

James Bonard Fowler, a former state trooper, is indicted for the murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson 40 years after Jackson’s death. The 1965 killing lead to a series of historic civil rights protests in Selma, Ala. January 2008

Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) introduces the Civil Rights Act of 2008. Some of the proposed provisions include ensuring that federal funds are not used to subsidize discrimination, holding employers accountable for age discrimination, and improving accountability for other violations of civil rights and workers’ rights. *“Civil Rights Movement Timeline (14th Amendment, 1964 Act, Human Rights Law) — Infoplease.com.” Infoplease. © 2000–2007 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease. 30 Aug. 2012 http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html.

Selected Bibliography By Artist

General History

Adelman, Bob. Mine Eyes Have Seen.

Bailey, Ronald and Michele Furst, eds. Let Us March On! Selected Civil Rights Photographs of Ernest C.Withers 1955–1968. Massachusetts College of Art and the Department of AfricanAmerican Studies: Boston, 1992.

Budnik, Dan. Picturing Artists (1950’s – 1960’s). Knoedler & Company: New York, 2006. Davidson, Bruce. Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs 1961–1965. St. Ann’s Press: Los Angeles, 2002. Freed, Leonard. Black in White America. Grossman Publishers: New York. Lyon, Danny. Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement. The University of North Carolina Press: Chapel Hill, 1992.

Berger, Maurice. For All the World to See:Visual culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights. Yale University Press: New Haven, CT, 2010. Bullard, Sarah, ed. Free at Last: A History of the Civil Rights Movement and Those Who Died in the Struggle. The Civil Rights Education Project: Mongomery, AL, unknown date. Carawan, Guy and Candie Carawan, eds. We Shall Overcome! Songs of the Southern Freedom Movement. Oak Publications: New York, 1963. Coleman, A.D. Light Readings: A Photography Critic’s Writings 1968–1978. Oxford University Press: New York, 1979. (Photocopy of “Danny Lyon and Geoff Winningham: Barred Doors, Bared Mats”) Cox, Julian. Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement 1956 –1968. High Museum of Art: Atlanta, 2008. Davis, Thulani. Malcolm X: The Great Photographs. Stewart, Tabori & Chang: New York, 1992. Durham, Michael S. and Andrew Young. Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore. Stewart, Tabori & Chang: New York, 1991. Kasher, Steven. Appeal to this Age: Photography of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954 –1968. Exh. cat. The Howard Greenberg Gallery: New York, 1994. Kasher, Steven. The Civil Rights Movement: A Photographic History, 1954–1968. Abbeville Press: New York, 1996. Marable, Manning and Leith Mullings. Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle. Phaidon Press Inc.: New York, 2002. Moore, Joe Lewis, ed. The Legacy of the Panthers: A Photographic Exhibition. Exh. cat. Inkworks Press: Berkeley, CA, 1995. O’Grady, Gerald. The Films of the Civil Rights: June 16–24, 1989. Newsprint. ________. Unknown article title in the Village Voice in the mid-70’s Seeger, Pete & Bob Reiser. Everybody Says Freedom: A History of the Civil Rights Movement in Songs and Pictures. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1989. Van Peebles, Mario, Ula Y. Taylor and J. Tarika Lewis. Panther: A Pictorial History of the Black Panthers and the Story Behind the Film. New Market Press: New York, 1995. Wexler, Sanford. An Eyewitness History of The Civil Rights Movement. Checkmark Books: New York, 1993. Wilkinson, Brenda. The Civil Rights Movement: An Illustrated History. Crescent Books: New York, 1997.

RELATED PROGAMS Lecture + Film Series

Thursday, November 1 / 6:30 pm Dr. Gerald O’Grady, Scholar Levitt Auditorium *Reservations required for the lecture only; not the subsequent film series Media and Civil Rights Scholar Gerald O’Grady has curated a series of potent civil-rights films in response to The Whole World Was Watching exhibition. O’Grady will commence the series by delivering a lecture on the text: “Brutality was imprisoned in a luminous glare revealing the naked truth to the whole world.” (Martin Luther King, Jr. commenting on television coverage of the Civil Rights as Campaign in Why We Can’t Wait (New York: Signet, 1964), p. 39.) A screening of the film The March immediately follows. The March 1963 James Blue, director / 37 minutes

Said to be the most important film made on the March on Washington, August 28, 1963, the film follows the arrival of the participants for the largest public assembly in American history, and culminates with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech. Blue directed, wrote, and read the commentary of this unusual combination of multi-crewed cinema verité and traditional documentary.

Film Series

The first four films will be introduced by Gerald O’Grady. Descriptions of the films can be found on the Art Center website, desmoinesartcenter.org. Sunday, November 4 / 1:30 pm Nine from Little Rock 1964 Charles Guggenheim, director / 20 minutes Integration Report I 1960 Madeline Anderson, director / 24 minutes The Streets of Greenwood [Mississippi] 1963

Jack Willis, director / 20 minutes The Children Were Watching 1961 Richard Leacock, director / 25 minutes

Thursday, November 15 / 6:30 pm Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment 1963

Robert Drew, director / 52 minutes Mississippi: Is This America? 1962–1964, Part Five, Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years 1986

Henry Hampton, director / 58 minutes Sunday, November 18 / 1:30 pm A Time for Burning 1967

William Jersey and Barbara Connell, directors 58 minutes Listen Whitey! 1968 Leslie Woodhead, director / 25 minutes The Best of Black Journal 1968–1970 William Greaves, director / 15 minutes (selections) Lecture

Thursday, December 13 / 6:30 pm Michelle White, Curator The Menil Collection, Houston Levitt Auditorium / Reservations required* Michelle White will deliver an illustrated lecture about the exhibition, the role of photography and media during the civil rights movement, and the history of art and activism at the Menil Collection, Houston. *Space is limited for these events. Please make your FREE reservations at desmoinesartcenter.org by clicking the EVENT RESERVATIONS bubble on the homepage, or by phone at 515.271.0313. Please specify which event(s) you wish to attend: O’Grady and/or White.

Support for The Whole World is Watching is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; The Brown Foundation, Inc., of Houston; Wells Fargo; substance; Marty Gross; and Faegre Baker Daniels LLP.

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts The Brown Foundation, Inc. Houston, Texas

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