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Museum Preview: History Center-Smithsonian exhibit evokes the fervor and hope of a remarkable era
Thursday, February 08, 2001 By Monica L. Haynes, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
They are images that pull feelings from your guts. They are images that push thoughts through your head. They are images that beg you to understand them and defy you to ignore them. A man more than 100 years old being lifted up by a jubilant crowd after registering to vote for the first time in 1966; a 5-year-old black child having an American flag ripped from his hands by a white police officer; a young white female civil rights demonstrator being beaten with a club.
The History Center is offering a special discount card for those interested in attending three or more of its Black History Month events. The cost of the card is $15 for adults; $12 for seniors and $8 for children. Regular admission is $6. For more information call the History Center at 454-6430
These are among the 75 photographs in "We Shall Overcome: Photographs from the American Civil Rights Era," an exhibit opening Saturday at the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the exhibit is the work of seven photographers who helped document the black struggle for dignity and equality between 1955 and 1968.
"What, to me, makes it even more interesting is it's not just a singular perspective," said Mary Martin, head of African American programs at the History Center. Martin has planned a host of activities at the History Center for Black History Month, including lectures and a film series (see black history list on page C-4).
Robert Phelan, curator of the "We Shall Overcome" exhibit which has been traveling since 1998 to museums affiliated with the Smithsonian, said the photographers featured were some of the most gifted practitioners working at the time. They are Bob Adelman, Bob Fitch, Leonard Freed, Matt Herron, Charles Moore, Gordon Parks and Robert Sengstacke. Each photographer's work represented a particular aspect of the movement.
The photographs of Adelman, who studied philosophy and law, express his interest in people forced to the margins of society. Fitch, a staff photographer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, captured the grassroots organizing efforts of the SCLC and other groups.
Freed, an American member of the photographers cooperative Magnum, returned to the United States from the Netherlands after seeing photographs of the Civil Rights Movement. Through his work, he set out to refute stereotypes of African Americans and to show their individuality. Herron worked as a magazine photographer, documenting the activities of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
Moore, son of a Baptist minister, made a specialty of capturing the most violent incidents of the era. Parks, one of the preeminent photojournalists of the 20th century, made his mark as a staff photographer for Life magazine, shooting everything from Paris fashion shows to Malcolm X. Sengstacke was the first non-Muslim photographer for "Muhammad Speaks," the Nation of Islam's official newspaper, and he sought to counter the negative images of blacks in the major news publications.
Accompanying the photographs are insights from those involved in the movement, including Julian Bond, Fannie Lou Hamer, James Baldwin, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. among others.
Phelan, who will give a talk about the exhibit at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, says he looked at thousands of images in developing it. "I came to understand that it was more about individuals taking ownership of their lives and rights more than it was about the media presenting the newsworthy aspects of the events," he says.
The same optimism and fervor is not apparent today, although in all fairness, Phelan says, civil rights issues are less clear in the 21st century than they were in the '50s and '60s. "In a way, the show is almost nostalgic for a time when problems could be addressed with a clarity that no one could find fault with," he says.
There were two reasons the History Center selected this exhibit, says Pam Pochapin, director of marketing and public relations for the center. First, it needed a quality Black History Month exhibition that could remain in place through the first weekend in April. That's when the 24th Annual Conference on Black History in Pennsylvania will be held at the History Center. The second reason the exhibit was attractive is because last July, the History Center became an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution. It's one of only 15 history museums nationwide to have that distinction and that can display Smithsonian exhibits, Pochapin says.
The History Center has added two companion pieces to "We Shall Overcome." They are an exhibit put together by the National Urban League to Celebrate its 90th anniversary and another that includes local civil rights history.
"We always try to make a Western Pennsylvania connection," Pochapin says. "We're making connections by providing people with information about what was happening in the civil rights movement here in Pittsburgh."
The local exhibit was developed in conjunction with the Manchester Craftmen's Guild and its photography instructor, Ed Barbour. His high school students photographed and interviewed Pittsburgh activists, including Nate Smith, Harvey Adams, and Alma Speed Fox.
It is the local civil rights activities that most people are unfamiliar with, even though that's where the national movement began, Phelan says. "I had always known, I guess, that it was primarily a grass-roots movement, and that most people's idea of the movement was through their perception of a few names that were larger than life."
The strength of the exhibit is that all the photographs work together in telling the civil rights story. "When you see [the photographs] all together, you come to realize instead of five or ten images that seem to stick in people's minds about the movement, in fact the history of the period is incredibly complex and still relatively unknown," Phelan says.
What he'd like to see people take away from viewing the exhibit is the fact that ordinary citizens can make a difference. "I think it's heartening to know that individuals can make a significant change in this country," he says. "When you see images such as these, when you see the people that are represented are the same as you and I, it all seems more hopeful."
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