Remembering Dr. King After A Pivotal Year
Charles Moore (American, 1931-2010), Martin Luther King Jr. Arrested, Montgomery, Alabama, 1958, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Lucinda W. Bunnen for the Bunnen Collection, 1994.63. © Charles Moore.
By Micaela Bahn
On the third Monday of each January, the nation pauses to remember the civil rights activist Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose assassination was an inflection point for both the country and the civil rights movement. It was arguably the moment that incited Lyndon B. Johnson to sign the 1968 Civil Rights Act, and TIME compared the events of that year to a “blade” that “severed the past from the future.” Today, in the U.S alone, there are more than 900 streets named after Dr. King, as well as countless visual representations of him across the world.
As we look back at Dr. King’s life, the photograph becomes one of the most immediate mediums in which his legacy is carried into the future. Images from that era exposed the horrific truths of state-sanctioned violence in a way previously unseen by a broad audience, setting the groundwork for the way photography is used today to create solidarity in the fight for Black lives.
Bill Hudson (American, 1932-2010), Police Dog Attack, Birmingham, Alabama, 1963, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Sandra Anderson Baccus in loving memory of Lloyd Tevis Baccus, M.D., 2007.100. © Bill Hudson
Specific images drew national attention to King’s work within the civil rights movement, such as Charles Moore’s photograph of King’s arrest at the Montgomery courthouse in 1958. Similarly, the televised Birmingham Children’s Crusade was one of the first instances that people outside the South witnessed these demonstrations. As the world watched young girls and boys face police dogs and high-power hoses, it revealed the resilience and determination of the multitudes organizing for change.
The first images of Dr. King that likely spring to mind include his famous, unwavering 1956 mugshot, the image of his raised hand while preaching at the Lincoln memorial, or of him walking arm-in-arm with protesters. And while these photos created a new visual narrative about civil rights, they also reveal the limitations of documentary photography –– while the medium provides access to a perceived essential truth, they fail to acknowledge the nuances of the subject they iconize, those captured in the lesser-known images of King as he stretches at his desk or plays with his small children.
James Karales (American 1930-2002), Passive Resistance Training, SNCC, 1960, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Sherri and Jess Crawford in honor of John Lewis, 2007.245. © James Karales.
Photographs of discrete historical moments produce the dominant representations of the civil rights movement but are not necessarily the whole picture. For example, a popular, misconstrued narrative about King‘s peaceful protest work willfully ignores his more radical views on capitalism and the danger presented by White moderates. While images of King’s Montgomery action launched him onto the national stage, the bus boycott had already been mobilized and formed by Black female domestic workers. This broader context reveals the concurrent perils of visual media in how we remember the fight for civil rights, which hinged on joint action. Images help create a narrative that sanctifies King as a heroic individual, dissociated from the integral collective—the many men and women who constituted the body of the freedom movement.
Charles Moore (American, 1931-2010), Freedom Singing, Selma, Alabama, 1965, gelatin silver print, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Sherri and Jess Crawford in honor of John Lewis, 2007.252. © Charles Moore.
People often critique today’s movement for Black lives as a “leaderless” one. The response, of course, is that it is a movement full of leaders. The current proliferation of images documenting police brutality has inspired a massive international mobilization, unmatched since King’s time. The rate at which images are circulated now strengthens activist connections around the world, from Ferguson to Palestine. UCSC scholar and activist Angela Davis notes that, in addition to appreciating the significant historical contributions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, “regimes of racial segregation were not disestablished because of the work of leaders and…legislators, but rather because of the fact that ordinary people adopted a critical stance.” At one point, King was one of those ordinary people.
