Civil Rights Battles, in Black and White
By DAVID GONZALEZ
Some of the most gripping images in “Road to Freedom” went unseen for decades. Pictures showing a mob attacking and setting fire to a bus carrying Freedom Riders in Anniston, Ala., are chilling in their step-by-step precision. Yet they were locked away in the files of a law firm.
They’re seeing the light of day again as part of “Road to Freedom: Photographs of the Civil Rights Movement, 1956-1968,” an exhibit of 150 images organized by the High Museum of Art. The pictures capture the unforgettable moments and forgotten heroes of the struggle for equal rights. They will be on display from March 28 through Aug. 11 at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Julian Cox, the curator of photography at the High Museum, has assembled an impressive permanent collection of pictures from the civil rights era. “Road to Freedom” gave him an opportunity to show the work of unheralded photographers alongside that of celebrated photojournalists. It also gave him a vehicle to underscore how crucial photography was in raising consciousness — and anger — about the routine denial of rights to African-Americans not so long ago.