Ernest C. Withers. Sanitation Workers Assembling for a Solidarity March, Memphis, March 28, 1968. National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights examines the major role imagery played in the fight for racial and social equality from the 1940s through the 1970s.
The exhibit shows how popular images—sometimes disturbing, sometimes entertaining, and sometimes overtly militant—played a crucial part in promoting important ideas about fairness and social equality and advancing civil rights during a key period in America’s history. The exhibit also focuses on the role of entertainment media, especially television, as an influential force in highlighting key civil rights events.
This exhibition has been made possible through NEH on the Road, a special initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. It has been adapted and is being toured by Mid-America Arts Alliance. For All the World to See: Visual Culture and the Struggle for Civil Rights was organized by The Center for Art, Design, and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in partnership with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution.
Also on view is a companion exhibit of photographs, culled from the Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection, A City Engaged: Los Angeles During the Civil Rights Era. In this exhibit, the library’s photo collection shows that while Los Angeles was not the epicenter of the civil rights movement, it played a part.