Culture and Resistance: Civil Rights Photography, Memphis 1968

Panel Discussion:

This exhibition features a collection of photographs taken during the 1968 sanitation strike in Memphis.  Ms. Hamdan examines the images for visual representations of culture and resistance and offers an alternative narrative to dominate historical accounts. Ms. Hamdan also links Dr. Martin Luther King’s testament to the importance of photography as a truth-revealing medium to early nineteenth century visual theorists and black freedom fighters, such as Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. DuBois, Sojourner Truth, Booker T. Washington, and Harriet Tubman.

The modern Civil Rights Movement generated an abundance of photographs documenting the African American fight for economic, political, and social justice and equality.  It was a persistent battle against oppressive forces that operated in powerful positions of legal, social, and economic authority.  Local and national news outlets employed photography as a tool to record events surrounding the African American civil rights struggle.  Many photographs have transcended the historic archive to become iconic images that represent a collective memory of the era.  The archive, however, extends far beyond the published images well known today.

Curated by Leila Hamdan This exhibition features a collection of photographs taken during the 1968 sanitation strike in Memphis.  Ms. Hamdan examines the images for visual representations of culture and resistance and offers an alternative narrative to dominate historical accounts. “Photographs courtesy of Special Collections at University of Memphis.”