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Home , Bernard Lee (activist), Charles Evers, Dolores Huerta, Fred Ross, March Against Fear

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Bob Fitch was a student at the Pacific School of Religion in the mid-1960s o v when he began his career as an activist photographer. Trained to be a Protestant e m

minister and expected to take a pulpit, he says, “Photojournalism seduced me. e

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It is a compelling combination of visual aesthetics, potent communication, s

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o The Bob Fitch Photography Archive at Stanford and storytelling. It is one way to support the organizing for social justice that r

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is transforming our lives and future.” h a

Shortly after working for the Glide Foundation in , Fitch be - n g came a staff photographer for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference e

(sclc) T , led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther Jr. Traveling throughout Alabama, h “In recent decades, historians have given increasing attention to the e

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Mississippi, and Georgia, Fitch documented movement events, including o role of talented photographers and artists who were both inspired by b , violence against , voter registration, F i social movements and took them as sources of inspiration. Bob Fitch t c and political campaigns. His images and stories were shipped to national h

P has been associated with a succession of the 20th century’s most h

African American publishing outlets that could neither afford nor risk sending o t significant social justice movements. His photographic archive will o g

reporters to the South. Many of his best images document the courageous r

a become a major attraction for any researcher interested in the social p contribution made to the by the men, women, and h y transformation of the since the early 1960s.”

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children who organized in the cause of freedom in their local communities. r c h

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Fitch returned to in 1966 and began to document U.S. peace and v e

a Professor & Director, Martin Luther King Jr.

social justice activities including and the Catholic Worker houses t

S Research and Education Institute, Stanford University t of hospitality; Pete Seeger and the Clearwater Campaign; the first congres - a n f o

sional campaign of California Congressman Ron Dellums; and the organizing r d efforts of and the union. The 2002 Cesar Cover: Chavez stamp issued by the U.S. Post Office is a rendering of a Fitch photo. Farmers pause to observe and greet marchers along the route of the Meredith Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Fitch worked in a variety of human services Against Fear. Mississippi, Summer 1966. programs for the State of California. He photographed less, but continued to Inside front cover: actively “use any media necessary” to support organizing efforts. After leaving , Education Director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, state service, he settled in Santa Cruz, California where he worked for the teaches literacy skills to adult women students. Camden, Alabama, 1966. Resource Center for (rcnv) , a thirty-year-old community-based nonprofit that Inside back cover: supports various local and national peace and Cesar Chavez waves an American flag to counter Red-baiting during an organizing social justice programs. Fitch currently lives in rally. To his right are an unidentified activist (speaking into microphone) and Watsonville, California, where he continues to (wearing glasses). Ganz was a Chavez confidant for many years work in behalf of organized labor and peace and and garnered tremendous support and respect from the farmworker community justice campaigns. in places like Salinas and Watsonville, California. Directly behind the speaker (in plaid shirt) is Bill Kircher, AFL-CIO Director of Organizing and liaison to the —Leslie G. Kelen, Executive Director of the UFW, and members of the Seafarers Union. Watsonville, California, 1974. Center for Documentary Expression and Art

Photograph by David Bacon $25.00 stanford university libraries ISBN 978-0-911221-54-1 52500>

9780911221541

Movements for Change Movements for Change The Bob Fitch Photography Archive at Stanford

stanford university libraries 2014 Contents

7 Acquiring the Bob Fitch Photography Archive RobertoTrujillo

9 Placing the Fitch Archive in Stanford’s Special Collections BenStone

13 Introduction BobFitch Published by the Stanford University Libraries in conjunction with the exhibition Movementsfor photographs Change:TheBobFitchPhotographyArchiveatStanford Peterson Gallery & Munger Rotunda 16 The Civil Rights Movement in the South | 1965 –1970 Cecil H. Green Library, Stanford University Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian September 14, 2014 through January 19, 2015. Leadership Conference 19 Copyright © 2014 by the Board of Trustees Paving the Way for Black Candidates 27 of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Voter Education and Registration 32 Interview and biography of Bob Fitch on pages 73 –79 The Meredith 38 and back cover inside flap reprinted from ThisLightof 42 Ours:ActivistPhotographersoftheCivilRightsMovement , edited by Leslie G. Kelen, copyright © 2011 by The Martin Luther King Jr.’s Funeral 47 Center for Documentary Expression & Art (Jackson, Continuing the Work 51 Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2012) 1969 –1975 (www.upress.state.ms.us). 52 The United Farm Workers | Designed and typeset by Becky Fischbach in Sumner Origins of the United Farm Workers 53 Stone’s Cycles family of types and Arepo titling. Organizing Farmworkers 55 Printed by Puritan Capital, Hollis, New Hampshire, and bound by New Hampshire Bindery. Edition 1,000 copies. 66 The Anti –Vietnam War Movement and The Resistance | 1967 –1970 isbn 978-0-911221-54-1 70 Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement | 1970 –1973 Frontispiece: Surroundedbypressandsupportersduringabreakinthe bob fitch oral history MeredithMarchAgainstFear,MartinLutherKingJr.shakes handswithcivilrightsactivistandMississippileaderAnnie 73 Excerpts from an Interview with Bob Fitch LeslieG.Kelen Devine.Canton,Mississippi,1966.

Page 6: AlongtherouteoftheMeredithMarchAgainstFear,an enthusiasticfoot-soremarcherachievessomecomfortgoing barefoot.Mississippi,Summer1966. Acquiring the Bob Fitch Photography Archive

The Stanford University Libraries acquired the Bob Fitch Photography Archive in late Fall 2013. Although I had been familiar with many of Fitch’s iconic photographs, I came to meet Bob only in 2011 after a graduate student of American history using manuscript collections on asked me whether Stanford owned any of Fitch’s photographs of people involved with the United Farm Workers union. We didn’t, but the prospect was immensely appealing. So that student, Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez, who knew Bob Fitch personally through his academic research, arranged for Bob and me to meet. It was immediately evident that Bob’s photographs could be a primary resource of great value not only to scholars and students of civil rights history, the peace movement, and labor and community organizing, but also to the individuals involved in these movements. It was also clear that the photographs would complement heavily used related collections already at Stanford. Bob Fitch has been documenting peace and justice work for close to a half century. From his first volunteer assignment for the Southern Christian Leadership Confer - ence (sclc) in Alabama in 1965, through documenting Luis Alejo’s 2010–2011 cam - paign for a seat in the California State Assembly, Fitch’s photographs are about the people who make up the movements for change. He followed them to the streets, the fields, the factories, the schools, and the churches to record their lives and work. The archive is extensive, encompassing some 275,000 images and including origi - nal film negatives, contact sheets, selected prints, color slides, audiovisual presenta - tions, digital files, and supporting non-photographic material. The archive includes iconic images that many will recognize, as well as thousands of rarely seen photo - graphs that provide context to well-known historical events. Subjects include:

Martin Luther King Jr., sclc civil rights organizing in the South, and photographs of the King family during and after King’s funeral [1965–1968] David Harris, Joan Baez, the Vietnam War draft resistance movement, and the San Diego, California, Connie Vote (against the return of aircraft carrier USS Constellation to Vietnam) [1966–1971] San Francisco counterculture and communes [1965–1970] Cecil Williams and Glide Memorial Church, San Francisco [1969–1975] Daniel and Philip Berrigan, the Catonsville Nine trials, and the “underground” [1969–1970] Ron Dellums ’s first congressional campaign [1970–1971] Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement [1970–1973] Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers [1970–1975] Rural Development Assistance Program (r-dap ) of the California Department of Housing and Community Development (hcd ) [1979–1997] Resource Center for Nonviolence, Santa Cruz, California [1999–2011] Sri Lanka campaign of the Nonviolent Peaceforce mediation teams [2005]

7 Fernando Suarez del Solar and the Guerrero Azteca Peace Project march against the Iraq War Placing the Fitch Archive in Stanford’s Special Collections from Tijuana, Mexico, to the San Francisco Latino communities [2006] Luis Alejo’s campaign for California State Assembly [2010–2011] The Bob Fitch Photography Archive is housed in the Stanford University Libraries For the past three decades, the Stanford University Libraries have actively collected Department of Special Collections & University Archives. Selected images from the archival materials that chronicle the history of modern civil rights and social change archive are available for non-commercial use through the Libraries’ SearchWorks movements in the United States. These collections are among the most heavily used online catalogue. Copyright for all the images has been transferred to Stanford. resources in the Department of Special Collections and University Archives. They Besides Bob Fitch himself, of course, there are many people to thank for enabling provide copious research and teaching opportunities and are regularly consulted by acquisition of the archive and making it available for use. The initial meeting with Stanford students, faculty, and independent scholars. Now they also provide a deep Bob Fitch arranged by Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez led to subsequent visits to Bob’s and rich context for the images in the Bob Fitch Photography Archive. home in Watsonville, California with Ben Stone, Stanford’s curator for American Fitch’s photographs reveal powerful images of individuals working for social and British history; Adan Griego, curator for Latin American, Iberian, and Mexican change, often in multiracial coalitions and across regions. Allowed unprecedented ac - American Collections; Becky Fischbach, manager and designer for Special Collec - cess not only to the events shaping these movements, but also to the lives of the people tions exhibits; and Peter Chan, digital archivist for Special Collections. involved, Fitch has captured thousands of images over his half-century of work, images We also are grateful to Michael A. Keller, University Librarian; and Zachary that augment and complement existing civil rights –related collections at Stanford. Baker, Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development, who approved The African American Civil Rights Movement the proposals and funding for the acquisition, and to the following Stanford faculty members: David Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Emeritus; The movement for African American civil rights is well represented in Stanford’s Clayborne Carson, Professor of History and Director, Martin Luther King Jr. holdings of materials that document the struggle in the South. Two highly notable Research and Education Institute; Albert Camarillo, Leon Sloss Jr. Memorial Profes - collections are the kzsu Project South collection and the –Lorna sor of History; and James Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States D. Smith collection. History, who wrote letters of endorsement. The kzsu Project South collection contains transcribed meetings and interviews Bob was assisted in the complex task of creating the archive by art appraiser with civil rights workers recorded by eight Stanford students affiliated with the Louise Allrich and book and ephemera dealer Marc Selvaggio. The intricacies of campus radio station kzsu during the summer of 1965. The students visited fifty civil intellectual property were navigated by attorney Michael Mount and by Bob Fitch’s rights projects in six southern U.S. states and recorded 330 hours of content, includ - longtime attorney, Brian Murtha. Bob also wishes to thank Ray Welles, Clayborne ing 200 hours of interviews with leaders and members of the Congress of Racial Carson, Lynne Simcox Fitch, Alison Luterman, Karen Shaffer, and Luis Alejo, and Equality (core ), the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the , the South - mentors Joe Holloway Jr., Flip Schulke, Matt Herron, Don Kuhn, and Louie Durham. ern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating The exhibition and catalogue are the joint effort of Ben Stone, Roberto Trujillo, Committee (sncc ). The collection also includes formal and informal remarks by Becky Fischbach, Bob Fitch, and Ignacio Ornelas Rodriguez. Many people worked people working with smaller, independent civil rights projects; action tapes of civil tirelessly to make the initial Fitch photo galleries available online through Stanford rights workers canvassing voters, conducting , and participating SearchWorks, including Peter Chan, Glynn Edwards, Cathy Aster, Ben Albritton, Peter in demonstrations; speeches by and interviews with such luminaries as Ralph Blank, Tony Calavano, Doris Cheung, Shelley Doljack, Tony Navarrete, Michael Olson, David Abernathy, , , Martin Luther King Jr., and Hosea Stuart Snydman, and Laura Wilsey. Howard Brainen of Two Cat Digital provided Williams, all of whom were photographed extensively by Bob Fitch; and even a Ku expert scanning of selected transparencies and negatives in the Fitch archive. Elizabeth Klux Klan meeting and a speech by Robert Shelton, then the Klan’s national leader. Rhein skillfully copyedited the text. Becky Fischbach designed and managed produc - The recordings have been digitized by Stanford’s Media Preservation Lab and the tion of both the exhibition and the catalogue. As always, her work is wonderful and in sound recordings as well as the transcripts are available for research. this case tailored to the occasion, content, and spirit of the photographer’s intent. The Stokely Carmichael –Lorna D. Smith collection, 1964–1972, contains a rich body of correspondence and other important papers relating to Carmichael, his Roberto G. Trujillo work with sncc , and his later role in the . Most of the corre - Frances&CharlesFieldCuratorofSpecialCollections spondence is addressed to San Jose civil rights activist Lorna D. Smith. TheStanfordUniversityLibraries

8 9 The acquisition by the Stanford Libraries of the Huey P. Newton – papers in the mid-1990s provided a foundational archive with which to study the black power movement. Bob Fitch documented seminal moments in the black power movement, photographed Black Panther activities, and covered Bay Area politician Ron Dellums and his rise to prominence in Berkeley and Oakland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Fitch archive also augments allied collections such as records of the National United Committee to Free , circa 1970 –1972, and photographs by Michelle Vignes of Black Panther Party members and Angela Davis, to provide further insights into the black power movement and radical politics of the day. The Mexican American Civil Rights Movement Bob Fitch’s decades-long documentation of the movement for Mexican American civil rights, especially his coverage of the United Farm Workers in California, is linked to a very large corpus of archival holdings at Stanford, including the maldef (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) records, the crla (California Rural Legal Assistance) records, the casa (Centro de Acción Social Autonomo) papers, the papers, the Elizabeth Sutherland Martínez papers, the Ernesto Galarza papers, and the Bert Corona papers. The maldef and crla papers comprise the archives of organizations that have long fought for Mexican American civil rights. Incorporated in 1967, maldef has evolved into one of the most influential and effective organizations working to pro - tect the civil rights of Mexican Americans and Latinos throughout the United States. Founded in 1966, crla is a legal advocacy organization for the rural poor in California, focusing primarily on legal and other issues faced by Mexican American migrant workers. This collection contains administrative records, project files, press releases, clippings, and case files. Many of the materials in this collection provide additional insight into the legal issues confronted by maldef , including bilingual education and the rights of undocumented immigrants. Bob Fitch’s longtime docu - mentation of the Mexican American civil rights movement, including his 2010 –2011 coverage of Watsonville politician (and former crla attorney) Luis Alejo, dovetails visually with both of these important collections. As founder of the Community Service Organization, Fred Ross was a pioneering organizer who mentored Cesar Chavez and worked closely with the United Farm Workers, organizing strikes and boycotts, and training hundreds of organizers. Elizabeth Sutherland Martínez served on the national staff of sncc and championed the cause of the United Farm Workers. Ernesto Galarza, a Mexican American labor activist, professor, poet, and writer, helped to organize California farmworkers in the National Farm Labor Union in the 1940s, an important precursor to the United Farm Workers. Bert Corona, a Mexican American labor leader and civil rights activist,

Right: AtaUFWrally,awomanholdsanimageoftheVirginofGuadalupeagainstabackdrop oftheU.S.andMexicanflags.

10 helped to lead and found several key organizations devoted to Mexican American Introduction labor and civil rights, including Asociación Nacional México-Americana (anma) and the Mexican American Political Association. Herman Gallegos, an activist and community organizer, helped to found the National Council of and led the The photos in this publication introduce you to some wonderful and courageous Community Service Organization in the early 1960s alongside Cesar Chavez. people who allowed me to photograph important moments in their lives. I hope these people and their stories will inspire you. The Ant i–Vietnam War Movement My work as a photojournalist began in 1965 when I was just out of seminary, with Fitch’s archive extends well beyond the struggles for African American and a volunteer assignment for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sclc) , Mexican American civil rights. Images of Daniel and Philip Berrigan, Pete Seeger, a coalition of black clergy active in civil rights organizing in the South, of which Dr. Joan Baez, David Harris, and many others active in the antiwar movement and the Martin Luther King Jr. was president. I worked for two intense years as the volunteer counterculture also figure prominently in Fitch’s images of the late 1960s and early photographer for Dr. King and the sclc , crisscrossing “Black Belt” states to docu - 1970s. Linkages to Stanford collections related to the counterculture, such as the ment his people-to-people speaking tours promoting get-out-the-vote campaigns. Stewart Brand and Buckminster Fuller papers, promise rich associations. Fitch In April 1968 I had just returned to Oakland, California when I learned of King’s himself published a book titled HippieIsNecessary (1967) documenting the assassination. Like many, I was devastated by the news, and was immersed in two counterculture community of the day in San Francisco. days of continuous weeping and grief. I readily accepted an invitation from sclc and the King family to return to Atlanta to document the funeral. Synergies Upon my arrival in Atlanta, King’s mentor, the Reverend , told The synergy between Stanford’s archival collections and the Fitch photography me that while driving to the fateful and tragic Memphis, Tennessee, garbage workers’ archive has already begun, as demonstrated by recent civil rights –related publica - strike, Dr. King had commented, “I wish Bob was with us.” More weeping. tions that cite original sources in Stanford Special Collections. University of Ralph’s disclosure was profoundly moving to me, a reminder of Dr. King’s often- Memphis historian Aram Goudsouzian utilized the Stokely Carmichael –Lorna D. declared appreciation for my work and also a validation of the relationship we had Smith collection and Bob Fitch’s photographs in his 2014 book examining the 1966 developed through our work together. Doc (as staff called Dr. King) had become an Mississippi Meredith March Against Fear: DowntotheCrossroads:CivilRights,Black older brother and mentor to this Anglo preacher, organizer, and amateur photogra - Power,andtheMeredithMarchAgainstFear (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Denison pher ten years his junior. University historian Lauren Araiza made use of both the Huey P. Newton –Black Three weeks after the funeral, having returned to Oakland, I attended an interra - Panther Party papers and the Fred Ross papers at Stanford to explore the relation - cial workshop on nonviolence at a conference center in the Santa Cruz Mountains. ship between African American and Latino in her 2014 Ironically, one evening, ideological conflict caused the workshop to nearly erupt into book, ToMarchforOthers:TheBlackFreedomStruggleandtheUnitedFarmWorkers violence. I left the tense conference room and went outside into the surrounding for - (University of Pennsylvania Press). Fitch’s photographs reveal the interconnections est, found comfortable seating on a log, and started to breathe the soothing and fresh between these movements. Journalist and independent scholar Miriam Pawel made crisp ocean air. use of the Ross and Gallegos papers in her recently published biography of Cesar Suddenly, standing in front of me, was Dr. King! Chavez, TheCrusadesofCesarChavez:ABiography (Bloomsbury Press), featuring Doc was as real as the office desk where I now work. His full body was there. a Bob Fitch photograph of Chavez on the cover. Using his familiar deep baritone, vowel-elongating, preacher voice, he spoke to me, The Bob Fitch Photography Archive brings a rich visual dimension to Stanford’s commanding: “Bob! Continue the work!” already strong holdings in archival materials dealing with movements for social I still don’t understand the phenomenon of his appearance. I don’t believe in change in modern America. Scholars and researchers are sure to find new and ghosts or apparitions. My best guess is that what I experienced was my own psyche important ways of utilizing the collections. delivering a valuable revelation inspired by King. It was important! During the following days I soberly reflected on the fact that many of the non - Ben Stone violent peace and social justice campaign leaders I respected were threatened with CuratorforAmericanandBritishHistory harm, prison, or death. I made a list: Cesar Chavez organizing the United Farm StanfordUniversityLibraries Workers union (ufw) ; David Harris organizing the West Coast anti –Vietnam War

12 13 draft-resistance movement and his then wife, folksinger and activist Joan Baez; and Roman Catholic priests Daniel and Philip Berrigan, two of the Catonsville Nine draft-file burners who were part of the Vietnam War resistance movement on the East Coast. Also on my list were Dorothy Day, titular parent of the anarchist nonviolent photographs Catholic Worker Movement; Pete Seeger, the life-affirming “bishop,” musician, spiritual guide, and mentor for activist Anglos; and Ron Dellums, the Berkeley, Oneseesclearlyonlywiththeheart. California city council member whose first run for Congress had earned the support Whatisessentialisinvisibletotheeye. of , her first political endorsement since her husband’s death. It was important to document the workers and leaders of these nonviolence cam - –Antoine de Saint Exupéry, TheLittlePrince paigns right away. Although I knew several photographers who might do a better job documenting them, none seemed interested or available. So? I decided to give it a try. I sketched a tentative plan to enable connection, funding, and practical schedul - ing. It seemed reasonable. I stuffed my Volkswagen Bug with equipment and supplies and headed south to Delano, California, where several of my seminary buddies were working closely with Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers. That was the turning point in my career. Since then my nearly fifty years of docu - mentation work has been erratic, often interrupted by organizing, family events, and a need for salaried employment. But as you may discover by reviewing the full archive of my work at the Stanford University Libraries, the years have been surpris - ingly fulfilling. This seventy-four-year-old has documented peace and social justice campaigns into the 21st century. I have been privileged to bear witness to countless historically important events, and the archive of my photographic work contains thousands of images from those experiences. A large selection of them will be accessible through SearchWorks, Stanford’s online catalogue, where anyone may freely download and use them for non-commercial purposes, including personal display and nonviolent peace and justice campaign organizing. Preserved in perpetuity, the availability of these images honors the trust granted by many who allowed me to freely record their lives. It is my hope that their descen - dants, successors, and those new to working for peace and justice may be inspired by the vision of their predecessors’ courageous actions captured in photographs. Together, we continue the work!

Bob Fitch Watsonville,California September2014

14

Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Inspired by the 1955 , the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sclc) was founded in Atlanta on January 10 –11, 1957, at the Ebenezer Baptist Church. Its original name, The Negro Leader - ship Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Organization, reflected that the group’s founders were carrying on a massive campaign to desegregate public transportation throughout the South. Later that year, the organization changed its name to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rather than an organization of individual members, the sclc was designed to function as a coalition of civil rights organizations—an umbrella group for associations with similar purposes and missions, all devoted to nonviolent action coupled with educa - tion. Voter registration and support of

Left: MartinLutherKingJr.shootspoolwith neighborhoodyouthinChicago.Kingwas theretolaunchtheSCLC’snorthernmovement incooperationwithJesseJackson,whowas coordinatoroftheSCLC’seconomicand developmentprogram,OperationBreadbasket. Chicago,Illinois,January1,1966.

Previous page: AyoungboypaysraptattentionasMartin LutherKingJr.addressesapackedcivilrights rallyinachurch.Eutaw,Alabama,1965.

18 19 African American candidates for public In a 1964 interview with Alex Haley, office were important activities of the King outlined the five aims of the sclc : sclc , which also supported many of the tostimulatenonviolent,direct,mass key nonviolent protests of the civil rights actiontoexposeandremovethe era, including the 1963 March on Wash - barriersofsegregationanddiscrimi - ington for Jobs and Freedom and James nation;todisseminatethecreative Meredith’s 1966 March Against Fear. philosophyandtechniquesofnon- The leadership of Martin Luther King violencethroughlocalandarea Jr. during the Montgomery Bus Boycott workshops;tosecuretherightand led to his selection as the first president of unhampereduseoftheballotfor the sclc , a position that he held until his everycitizen;toachievefullcitizen - assassination in April 1968. The organiza - shiprightsandthetotalintegration tion’s first program director was Ralph oftheNegrointoAmericanlife;and David Abernathy, who succeeded King as toreducetheculturallagthroughour president. citizenshiptrainingprogram.

Above: Right: SCLCleadersconferonstageduringarallyat OutsideanannualSCLCretreatatPenn KellyIngramPark,wherethreeyearsearlier Center.Lefttoright:SCLCOperation SheriffBullConnor’stroopshadchargedcivil BreadbasketcoordinatorJesseJackson, rightsmarcherswithpolicedogsandfirehoses. musicianandactivistJoanBaez,pacifist Lefttoright:FredShuttlesworth,BernardLee, IraSandperl,MartinLutherKingJr., MartinLutherKingJr.,andHoseaWilliams. andKing’ssecretaryDoraMcDonald. Birmingham,Alabama,1965. Frogmore,NorthCarolina,1966.

20 21 Left: Aboycottsupporterin Grenada,Mississippi,a segregationiststronghold. Inadditiontochurches, schools,andpublic facilitiesseparatedby race,whitebusiness ownersrefusedtohire blacksforanybutthemost menialjobsdespitetheir comprisinghalfthetown’s population.Grenada, Mississippi,1966.

Right: MartinLutherKingJr. shepherdsseven-year-old studentsEvaLemon(left) andAretha Willisona marchtointegrateschools. Grenada,Mississippi, 1966.

22 23 Above: Right: MartinLutherKingJr.and MartinLutherKingJr.inhisSCLCoffice. AndrewYoungwaitinthe OnthewallisaportraitofMahatmaGandhi, airportattheendofalongday. whosepracticeandteachingofnonviolent Montgomery,Alabama, directactioninspiredKing’swork.Kingasked Fall1966. BobFitchtophotographhimhereforthe jacketofhisthen-forthcoming(andlast)book, Where Do We Go From Here? publishedin 1967.Thisimageisalsothebasisforthe MartinLutherKingJr.Memorialin Washington,DC,unveiledin2011. Atlanta,Georgia,1966.

24 25 Tom Gilmore: Paving the Way for Black Candidates

Famously known as “the sheriff who In 1965, Gilmore helped lead a did not carry a gun ,” Thomas E. Gilmore demon stration in Eutaw, Alabama after was the first black sheriff elected in a young black woman was assaulted Greene County, Alabama and only the by a local deputy sheriff. While trying second black sheriff elected in the entire to file a complaint with the local district state. As a Baptist minister, Gilmore attorney, Gilmore and others were actively espoused Martin Luther King beaten by the Greene County sheriff. Jr .’s philosophy of nonviolence. Following this incident, local minister Born in Forkland, Alabama in 1941, and civil rights leader William McKinley and educated at Selma University, Branch and sclc staff member James Gilmore lived in briefly Orange courageously suggested that before returning to Alabama in 1965 Gilmore should seek the office himself. with his wife and three young sons. Following an initial 1966 defeat (owing He immediately became active in the to voter irregularities), Gilmore was local civil rights movement and became elected in 1970 and served as sheriff a paid staff member of the Southern of Greene County until 1983. Christian Leadership Conference. In 2013, the Greene County court - At King’s urging, Gilmore and sclc house and courthouse square were colleagues led local voter registration renamed in Gilmore’s honor. drives in Greene County.

Left: SheriffBillLee(right)slapsTomGilmoreas Gilmoreleadsamarchtointegrateschools. Eutaw,Alabama,1965.

26 27 Above: Familyportraitsoftwoofthefirstblack LocalSCLCorganizerslinkhandswithTom candidatesforpublicofficeintheSouth Gilmore(center),singing“WeShallOvercome .” sinceReconstruction. Eutaw,Alabama,1965. Above right: IsomAtkinsandhisfamily. Marion,Alabama,Winter1965–1966. Right: AnnBraxtonandherfamily. Demopolis,Alabama,Winter1965–1966.

28 29 Sixteen-year-old DorindaPalmer leadsmarchersto CityHall,blocked bywhitesherif f’s deputiesandlocal residents,including KuKluxKlan memberswearing streetclothes. Greenwood, Mississippi,1965.

30 31 Above: SeptimaClark,co-founderofSCLC’sCitizenship EducationProject,worksone-on-onetoteachaman howtowrite.Camden,Alabama,1966.

Left: DorothyCotton,SCLCEducationDirector, workswithadultwomenstudentsinaclassroom. Camden,Alabama,1966.

Voter Education and Registration

The drive to register and educate African American voters in the South remained Georgia and South Carolina. These classes were created to educate adults in literacy one of the central missions of the sclc , as well as of allied civil rights organizations so that they could pass voting literacy tests and driver’s license exams, open bank such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (sncc) throughout the accounts, and obtain other information necessary for functioning in modern Amer - civil rights era. ica. The Highlander Folk School in Tennessee expanded the program throughout the Voter education and registration took many forms, including “citizenship South. In 1961, the sclc took over the Highlander Folk School and made the citizen - schools” started in 1954 by Septima Clark and Esau Jenkins on the Sea Islands off ship schools an integral part of its program.

32 33 Voter registration sparked concerted activism in Albany, Georgia in 1961, where the sclc and sncc worked to register eligible African American voters, only nineteen percent of whom were registered when the project began. Voter registration re-emerged as an important issue for the sclc following the passage of the . Selma and Montgomery, Alabama became the next targets for action on the voting rights front and voter registra - tion in Mississippi would become an important feature of ’s March Against Fear in 1966.

Localyouthofferedfreerides torecruitersandregistrantsin this“voterregistrationmobile .” Montgomery,Alabama,1965.

34 35 Above: Right: Apollworkershowsafirst-timevoterwhereto AtriumphantElFondren,borncirca1860, deposittheballotshejustcastwhileothernew isheldaloftbysupportersafterregistering voterswaittheirturn.Atlanta,Georgia1966. tovoteforthefirsttimeinhislife.Batesville, Mississippi,1966.

36 The Meredith March Against Fear

Often regarded as the last great march had been passed. (One of the first to of the civil rights movement, the March register was 106-year-old El Fondren, Against Fear began as a solitary action who signed up at the march’s first court - by James Meredith, a civil rights activist house rally in Batesville, Mississippi.) and the first African American student Soon after starting out, Meredith was to attend the University of Mississippi . attacked and injured by a gunman and Meredith set out on June 6, 1966, to walk was forced to terminate his walk. But the 220 miles from Memphis, Tennessee, other civil rights campaigners, including to Jackson, Mississippi. His aim was to Martin Luther King Jr. and the sclc , encourage blacks to register and vote sncc ’s Stokely Carmichael, Cleveland now that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 Sellers, and Floyd McKissick, as well as

Left: Above: RepresentativesoftheSouthernChristian AlongtherouteoftheMeredithMarchAgainst LeadershipConference(SCLC)andthe Fear,SCLCVicePresidentRalphAbernathy StudentNonviolentCoordinatingCommittee explainsaroadsidebillboardthataccuses (SNCC)marchtogetherintheMeredith MartinLutherKingJr.ofattendinga MarchAgainstFear.Lefttoright:SNCC Communisttrainingschool.Thebillboard, organizerWillieRicks,SCLCorganizer featuringaphotographofKingasayoung BernardLee,MartinLutherKingJr., manattendingHighlanderFolkSchoolin SNCCleaderStokelyCarmichael,andSCLC Tennessee,couldbeseenalongthehighways executivedirectorAndrewYoung.Despite ofalmosteverysouthernstate.Anintegrated publicityaboutideologicaldisagreements community-organizingschool,Highlander betweenSNCCandSCLC,camaraderie becameatargetforRed-baitingandracist flourishedamongthetwogroups’leaders. hatred.Mississippi,1966. Mississippi,July1966.

38 39 the Congress of Racial Equality (core ), the Human Rights Medical Left: Above: Committee, and other organizations decided to continue the effort MeredithMarchhecklers. MeredithmarchersenterJackson, in Meredith’s name. Meredith was able to rejoin the march before Canton,Mississippi,Summer1966. Mississippi,neartheendofthe220-mile it reached Jackson on June 26, 1966. During the march, nearly march.June26,1966. 4,000 black Mississippians registered to vote.

40 41 Black Power

As the Meredith March proceeded themselves at odds with each other over Below left: Below: through Mississippi in , and their priorities for action. The contro - Atalate-nightmeeting,MeredithMarchleaders StokelyCarmichaelmakesthe violence flared up, tensions arose over versy intensified when sncc ’s Stokely discusspossibleconsequencesofStokelyCarmichael’s firstpublicuseofthe“Black proposedslogan,“BlackPower!”Clockwisefrom Power!”sloganfromtheback the purpose and goals of the march and Carmichael proposed adopting “Black upperleft:BernardLee,AndrewYoung,Robert ofaflatbedtruck.Greenwood, by extension, the broader goals and lead - Power!” as the movement’s slogan. Green,MartinLutherKingJr.,LawrenceGuyot, Mississippi,June16,1966. ership of the movement for civil rights in In a rousing speech delivered in unidentifiedman,andStokelyCarmichael(lying the South and nationwide. Key groups Greenwood, Mississippi, on the evening onfloor).Canton,Mississippi,1966. including sclc , core , and sncc found of June 16, 1966, Carmichael eschewed

42 43 ABlackPantherPartyrally. Oakland,California,March1972. Top: Youngrecruitsinuniform. Bottom: Freefooddistribution.

the slow, patient pace of nonviolent faced challenges from the Panthers and protest and reform, and demanded that other new militant organizations, whose black majorities exercise political and leaders were arguing that civil rights economic power, declaring, “We want reforms were insufficient because they black power! We want black power!” did not fully address the problems of poor A few months later, Huey Newton and powerless African Americans. Fre - and founded the Black Pan - quently disavowing nonviolent principles, ther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, the Panthers and others often quoted California. Founded on October 15, 1966, militant activist ’s imperative: its stated mission was to protect African “By any means necessary.” Questioning Americans from police brutality. But the American citizenship and identity as Panthers came to espouse a broad range goals for African Americans, black power of social programs and goals, from proponents called instead for a global access to fair housing and employment struggle for black national “self-determi - to initiatives known as “survival pro - nation” rather than merely for civil rights. grams” that offered free food and med - While he remained committed to non - ical care. The Panthers also pursued a violent , Martin Luther King strategy of multiracial coalition build - Jr. embraced aspects of many of these ing, and supported the nationwide grape causes: he opposed the Vietnam War, de - boycott championed by the United Farm livering a passionate sermon at Riverside Workers, which was under way at the Church in New York City titled “Beyond same time. While the core of the Black Vietnam” on April 4, 1967. In December Panther Party remained in the San Fran - 1967 he announced a Poor People’s Cam - cisco Bay Area, chapters were created paign that intended to bring thousands throughout the U.S. In 1969, member - of protesters to Washington, DC, to lobby ship in the Black Panther Party peaked for an end to poverty. near 10,000. The party’s newspaper, TheBlackPanther , under the editorial SNCCChairmanStokelyCarmichael leadership of , had a ataBlackPantherPartyrally.Hehad circulation of 250,000. earlierusedablackpantherasapolitical By the late 1960s not only the naacp symbolinLowndesCounty,Alabama. and sclc , but also even sncc and core Oakland,California,March1972.

44 45 Martin Luther King Jr .’s Funeral

Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday, April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. King’s funeral was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, where he and his father had been the pastors. At the request of his widow, Coretta Scott King, a recording of King’s February 4, 1968, “Drum Major Instinct” sermon was played. In it, King requests that at his funeral no mention of his awards and honors be made, but that it be said that he tried to “feed the hungry,” “clothe those who were naked,” “be right on the [Vietnam] war question,” and “love and serve humanity.”

Left: CorettaScottKing restsinherbedroom beforeherhusband’s funeral.Onthewall aboveherisher portraitasayounger woman.Atlanta, Georgia,April1968.

Right: Familyandfriends surroundCoretta ScottKinginthe masterbedroomof herhome.Leftto right:TheKings’son MartinIII,Martin LutherKingJr.’s brotherAlfred DanielKing,Coretta ScottKing,an unidentifiedSCLC staffmember,Ralph Abernathy,and.Atlanta, Georgia,April1968.

46 47 Left: CorettaScottKingcomfortsherfive- year-olddaughterBerniceduring thefuneralforMartinLutherKing Jr.atEbenezerBaptistChurch. Atlanta,Georgia,April9,1968.

Opposite: ViewingofthebodyofMartin LutherKingJr.,assassinated April4,1968.Fitchhesitatedbefore photographingKinginhiscasket. “Itwasatoughdecisiontotake thephoto ,”hesays.“Itfeltlike blasphemytoputacamerainhis face,butthenIthought,‘Theworld needstoseethishorribletruth .’ ” Atlanta,Georgia,April9,1968.

Below: Insidethelimousineontheway toMartinLutherKingJr .’sfuneral. Lefttoright:King’sbrother AlfredDanielKing,secretary DoraMcDonald,daughterBernice, widowCoretta,andsonDexter. Atlanta,Georgia,April9,1968.

48 Continuing the Work

After Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Ralph Abernathy succeeded him as sclc president and continued the practice of as a means of achieving equality for America’s blacks. Abernathy also led the Poor People’s March on Washington, DC, with daily demonstrations in May and June 1968, just one month after King’s death. Though the sclc began to decline in influence, Abernathy continued to fight for economic equality and sought to forge new alliances, especially with organized labor, most prominently Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers in California. Under Abernathy, the sclc actively supported the ufw ’s nationwide grape boycott campaign. Coretta Scott King carried on her late husband’s work as well, supporting Chavez and the ufw and campaigning for Ron Dellums, an African American member of the Berkeley, California city council, who was running for Congress. Dellums was elected in 1971, served fourteen terms, and was elected mayor of Oakland in 2006.

Left: Above: CorettaScottKingandRalphAbernathy CorettaScottKingendorsesRonDellums attheLincolnMemorialduringthePoor forhisfirstrunforCongress.Dellumsisseated People’sMarch.Washington,DC,May1968. atherright.Oakland,California,Fall1970. 51 Origins of the United Farm Workers

In 1962, Cesar Chavez, , and founded the National Farm Workers Association (nfwa) , to fight for “La Causa” (Spanish for “The Cause”). Utilizing principles of grassroots community organizing and espousing nonviolence, the nfwa sought to provide a union for agricultural workers in order to improve wages and working conditions. In 1965 the nfwa undertook its first strike (“Huelga!”), by rose grafters, and later that year, followed up with the famous Delano, California grape workers strike, which continued for five years. The nfwa joined with the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee, led by Filipino organizer , to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee on August 22, 1966. This organization was accepted into the afl-cio in 1972 and shortened its name to United Farm Workers.

Left: Afarmworkerthinsceleryusingashort- handledhoe.Punishingworkingconditions andlowpaywereamongtheissuesaddressed bytheUnitedFarmWorkers’organizing effortsofthe1950sthroughthe1970s. Watsonville,California,1974.

Right: FredRoss.Ross,anorganizerfortheIndustrial AreasFoundationfoundedbySaulAlinsky, wasamentorandconsultanttoCesarChavez andtheUFW.Salinas,California,1973.

53 Organizing Farmworkers

On September 8, 1965, Filipino American grape workers, members of the Agricul - tural Workers Organizing Committee, walked out on strike against Delano-area table and wine grape growers, protesting years of poor pay and conditions. The Filipino American workers asked Cesar Chavez of the National Farm Workers Association to join their strike. The nfwa voted to join the Filipino workers’ walkout on Mexican Inde - pendence Day, September 16, 1965. Through its grassroots efforts—utilizing consumer boycotts, marches, commu - nity organizing, and nonviolent resist - ance—the movement gained national attention for the plight of some of the nation’s lowest-paid workers. By 1970, the ufw had succeeded in reaching a collective bargaining agreement with the table-grape growers, affecting in excess of 10,000 farmworkers. Following victory in the , the ufw helped to lead a strike and boycott against lettuce growers in August 1970. Exacerbated by internal conflicts with the Teamsters (finally resolved in 1977) and beset by increasing violence, Chavez and other organizers were briefly imprisoned in December 1970 for challenging a judicial order against the boycott. Additional work actions and marches by ufw members, including the Modesto March of Febru - ary 1975, helped to bring about passage in May 1975 of the California Agricul - UnitedFarmWorkersboardmember,organizer,and tural Labor Relations Act (calra) , ChavezconfidantMarshallGanzrecruitsnewpicketsfor a statute that established collective theUFW.FresnoCounty,California,March1975. bargaining rights for farmworkers.

54 55 Left: CesarChavez. Delano,California,1969. Right: CorettaScottKingandDolores Huertacarryonsupportofthe UFWwhileCesarChavezis jailed.Salinas,California, December1970. Below: Exhaustedattheendofthefirst dayofaneight-weektourofthe EastCoastandCanada,Chavez holdsameetinginhisbedroom. Baltimore,Maryland,Fall1969.

56 57 Above: Right: Anarmedguardwithdogstands DorothyDay,co-founderoftheCatholicWorker betweenfieldworkersandUFW Movement,practicesnonviolentresistanceataUFW picketers.Salinas,California, picket.Whenarthritismadestandingdifficult,Day May1973. confrontedsheriffsfromherportablecollapsiblethree- leggedgolfstool.Lamont,California,August1973.

58 59 Left: Above: AUFWmarchsupportstheorganizing CesarChavezconferswithvineyardworkers. effortsofGallovineyardworkers. FresnoCounty,California,1973. Modesto,California,March3,1975.

61 Above: AFilipinoworkerdisplaysaboxofgrapes bearingtheUFWlabel.CoachellaValley, California,Winter1970.

Right: DeputiesarrestMartaRodriguezduring apicketoftheGiumarravineyards. Arvin,California,July1973.

62 Above: Right: ThefuneralprocessionforUFWpicketleader UFWVicePresidentDoloresHuerta NagiDaifullahweavesitswaythrough atthefuneralofNagiDaifullah. vineyards.Daifullahdiedafterbeingstruck Delano,California,August17,1973. ontheheadbyapoliceflashlightduringa confrontationwithKernCountysherif f’s deputies.Delano,California,August17,1973.

64 65 The Anti –Vietnam War Movement and The Resistance

The movement against U.S. involvement in Vietnam began in the early 1960s among peace activists and leftist intellectuals on college campuses, but gained wide national prominence in 1965, after the United States escalated the war with a sus - tained bombing campaign against North Vietnam and with increased troop levels. Antiwar marches and other protests, such as those organized by Students for a Democratic Society (sds) to oppose the military draft, attracted a widening base of support over the next three years, peaking in early 1968. The Berrigan brothers, David Harris, and Joan Baez were among the antiwar activists whose lives and actions garnered national attention. Brothers Daniel and Philip Berrigan, both ordained Roman Catholic priests, spearheaded acts of civil disobedience designed to call attention to U.S. involvement in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As members of a group known as the Baltimore Four, they oc - cupied the Selective Service Board in the Baltimore Customs House in 1967. The fol - lowing year, they participated in using homemade napalm to burn draft records in Catonsville, Maryland, with a group of Catholic protesters known as the Catonsville Nine. Both brothers went into hiding following a federal convic - tion, but were soon apprehended and imprisoned. A native of Fresno, California, David Harris attended Stanford University, where he was elected student body president in 1965.

Left: PeteSeegerperformsattheClearwater SloopFestival,whichheco-founded withhiswife,ToshiSeeger.Throughhis music,Seegerinspiredandgalvanized generationsofpeace,justice,andcivil rightsactivistsandhelpedtopopularize thespiritual“WeShallOvercome”as theunofficialanthemoftheAmerican civilrightsmovement.Kingston,New York,July1,1969.

Right: Draftprotestersflashpeacesigns duringtheirarrestattheArmy InductionCenter.Oakland,California, Winter1967–1968.

66 Harris’s involvement in civil rights and Vietnam War. The Resistance became nonviolent activism began with his par - a leading national organization in ticipation as a sncc volunteer in Missis - the antiwar movement. Convicted sippi in 1964. In 1967, while still at of draft evasion in 1969, Harris served Stanford, Harris founded an organiza - twenty months in federal prison. From tion known as The Resistance, which 1968 through 1973, Harris was married advocated draft resistance and noncom - to singer and activist Joan Baez, who pliance with the Selective Service Sys - was also prominent in the civil rights tem, in order to bring an end to the and antiwar movements.

AfederalmarshalhandcuffsDavidHarris DanielBerriganmodelsvarious TheBerriganbrothers,DanielandPhilip,embrace insidethecarthatwilltakehimtoprisonfor “underground”disguisesina astheymeetaftergoingintohiding.April1970. resistingthedraft.StruggleMountain,Los housewherethebrotherswere AltosHills,California,July15,1969. shelteredwhileinhiding. April1970.

68 69 Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement

Brooklyn native Dorothy Day co-founded the Catholic Worker Movement with French social justice activist Peter Maurin in New York City in 1933. A journalist and Catholic convert, Day was a leader of the pacifist movement that seeks to com - bine aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent social protest on their behalf. She served as editor of the CatholicWorker newspaper from 1933 until her death in 1980. Day, along with fellow members of Catholic Worker communities, supported Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, organized labor including Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, and the antiwar movement.

Above: Right: DorothyDayattendsthebedsideofher DorothyDaywalksinthewoodsattheCatholic longtimefriendPeggyBairdattheCatholic WorkerFarm.Tivoli,NewYork,January1973. WorkerFarm.BairdandDayhadshared ajailcellin1917forparticipatingina suffragedemonstrationattheWhiteHouse. Tivoli,NewYork.1970.

70 Oral History Interview with Bob Fitch

In2009,LeslieG.Kelen,ExecutiveDirectoroftheCenterforDocumentaryExpression andArt,conductedaseriesoforalhistoryinterviewsthatarecollectedin This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement (UniversityPressof Mississippi,2012).ThisexcerptfromKelen’sinterviewwithBobFitch,aswellasthebrief biographyofFitchthatappearsinsidethebackcoverofthisbook,arereprintedwiththe publisher’spermission.Thetranscripthasbeeneditedandclarified.

I started meddling with photography in junior high school out of sheer amazement. I mean, you take this piece of paper out of the camera, put it in a little container, add some chemicals, and poof, you get a negative. Shine a light through that on some paper, put that piece of paper in some chemicals, and poof, this picture appears. Total magic. But I photographed intermittently until seminary. I’d pick up a camera, I’d do some work. In college, I photographed for the newspaper. Because there wasn’t a pho - tographer, I filled a hole, but not very well. So I kept those skills growing a little bit. Then in seminary I read ’s TheFireNextTime . I’d gotten into it at about eleven at night. It was a class assignment, and I couldn’t put it down. I don’t know how much Baldwin you’ve read, but he’s vivid . You can feel, smell, taste, and see when you read Baldwin, and TheFireNextTime is this amazing prophecy. Baldwin takes off on this theme based on living in Harlem and the building anger and frustra - tion of black people. It’s a stunning book. At the end of the reading, about four in the morning, I had a vision that somehow, some way I would aesthetically be portraying elements in that book. After this settled down, I was in my chair, thinking, if this is gonna happen, writing is a pain in the ass for me. I can’t draw for shit. What’s it gonna be? Well, within a week, I bought my first professional-level used camera back, 35 mm lens, 100 mm lens, BobFitch,right,accompaniedbyCaliforniaHighwayPatrolofficers.Salinas,California1973. and started to photograph. And then civil rights activity in San Francisco came along, the Free Speech Movement came along, and I began to photograph here and there. Glide really shaped that. Glide Church was a Methodist church in the inner city of San Francisco that had been set up by the Glide family of California oil wealth to evangel - ize in the inner city. And they meant old-style evangelism. Well, they got a new bishop and he said, “We’re going to start evangelizing in a different way. We’re going to assist gangs to pull out of their warfare; we’re going to assist the counterculture to stabilize its communes and its newspapers; we’re going to assist the gay and the lesbian com - munity to empower themselves in the political sphere; we’re going to feed and house and clothe the poor and the homeless in the Tenderloin where we’re located.” And they brought in a team of four very tough, brilliant organizers, and they started getting interns from my seminary, the Pacific School of Religion, and I was one of the first. I got pulled into the Mission District to work with a church that’s

72 73 still in the Mission now. And, actually, I fucked up, and they pulled me out. My wife into the field. And we want you to be a wire service, and every week, if possible, we at the time ended up having a quasi-love affair with a gang leader, and he and I ended want you to send out photos and stories.” up in a fight one night. I was just a stupid, naïve kid on the street, so they pulled me So very shortly, every week, with the help of wire service reporters who taught me out and hooked me up with the publishing side of Glide, which was publishing books how to survive in the field, I began turning in photos and stories. If I have any regret on inner-city action issues, and they asked me to do some photography for them. it is that I didn’t have more journalistic training. I didn’t have a keen sense of the That’s where things really started for me in photography. I had no formal train - cosmic time I was in. But a few people like Flip Schulke, a Life photographer, finally ing, so I began ferociously and vigorously consuming books about photographers knocked on my head and said, “Hey, guy, you’re in the middle of history. Be more —Cartier-Bresson being a lead mentor philosophically, and . I took thoughtful about getting pictures.” Joe Holloway, a upi photographer, was another every free course I could. I talked to everybody I could, and I was surprised. I did mentor. Joe was a southerner. He never took sides, although he was emotionally very well. I had a pretty good eye. much on the side of integration. He was just clever at getting around and not getting By then Don Kuhn [Glide’s then executive director] saw the photos and saw a way hurt. And he showed me how to be respectful and cool with southerners. He also to add illustrations to the books he was working on. I did photography with them for took me into the upi labs and showed me how to develop and print in a bathroom, over two years and then after seminary, I wrote to friends at sclc . I had invited them when you’re on the road and you’re in a motel room. He taught me this whole kinda up as speakers and raised money for them for three years, so I wrote ’em and said, behind-the-scenes urgency technology they were using. “What would it be like if I came down as a photographer?” I knew that after Selma 1 So then Hosea or Andy [] started giving me assignments. And a there would be a big exodus and everybody would go home. And the big chore after routine assignment was a Dr. King Alabama speaking tour, where you’d be lined up Selma would be getting some people elected. So they said, “Oh, that’d be cool. We for two or three days and eight to twelve churches. The tour would encourage voter don’t have anybody right now, and nobody stays after they sell a few photos.” registration or support candidates in local communities where candidates would Another part of my decision to go south to work for the black civil rights move - come forward and offer to run for sheriff or justice of the peace or school board. ment was my father, who taught ethics at my seminary. He was a man who received all And these were a kick in the ass, because Dr. King and Andy liked to drive at eighty, his information by reading books or journals, and he was a tremendous researcher. He ninety miles an hour. So there’d be Dr. King’s car, Andy driving, and Hosea with would reread Socrates, Plato, Herodotus, Hume, and Berkeley every ten years, and he them; then would come a couple of staff cars, I might be in one of ’em; then would collected all their statements that correlated with Christian teachings. So I made a come the conventional press. So you had this caravan, tearing down these two-lane vow to myself early in my graduate years: I am going to be someone who doesn’t read back roads. Normally the cops would arrest these drivers, but it was Dr. King, who about it, but someone who goes there and experiences it. I want to smell it and feel it was a global personality by that time, so they didn’t stop the caravan. And so for two and taste it. So a hunk of my decision to go south was the sense that now I’ve got all or three days we just tore across the state, stopping in a little church for a sermon, this education, I’ve got all this academic work, now I’m gonna go and be there. a little food, shaking hands, and photographs. I piled my cameras in a bag and I got down there. My primary contact in Atlanta Another assignment, particularly around the campaign, was they wanted head - was . He was the field organizer, and I learned from him they couldn’t shots of every candidate running for office. They’d give me names, they’d give me send black photographers into the field. They’d get the crap beat out of ’em, or they towns, they’d give me a contact in the town, all over Alabama, and they’d stick me were killed. The newspapers and magazines— Ebony , Jet , PhiladelphiaCourier , the in a car and send me off. A third type came when something happened in a given Amsterdam News , all the newspapers across the country that were Afro—couldn’t town—like when Grenada, Mississippi was having a series of marches to boycott afford to send their own correspondents down there, much less risk it. So Hosea the stores in downtown because they won’t hire any blacks. I’d stay for a week, Williams pointed a finger at me and said, “We’re gonna send your little white ass photograph, and get the story out. And after a while I could see that Doc kinda got to like me. He became like an older brother to me. It was a very special relationship, and he was great to be with. He was funny and affable, and he had an intensity that 1 The voting rights movement in Selma, Alabama, was started by the Student Nonviolent engaged people. So when he was with someone, he was with them. It was really Coordinating Committee in 1961 and successfully concluded by sclc and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1965. Between March 7 and March 21, 1965, three organized voting-rights marches took place. powerful to see him during a break in a campaign when people would gather and The final five-day march (March 21 –25) went from Selma to the in he’d hold these intimate conversations. Then at night we’d relax and tell stories. Montgomery and precipitated passage of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. We’d be a bunch of people in a room, and they’d tell stories and laugh and holler.

74 75 I don’t know whether you’ve ever been around physicians. They have kind of an emergency-room humor. This was kind of near-death humor. I carried out these assignments for about a year and a half, and I was very success - ful. I’d come back on a Wednesday or Thursday or Friday and I developed film, made a bunch of prints. I had a bunch of boxes for the different places where I would send them, write cut lines for the prints, Scotch tape ’em on, and write a little story to go with a print or several prints, stuff it in an envelope, and send it off. Sometimes up to a dozen to the major black press across the country, including Jet and Ebony . Then, I don’t know if you remember, but all these Afro newspapers across the country would hit the newsstand on Tuesday. Sometimes they wouldn’t arrive in Atlanta ’til Wednesday. I’d go down on Wednesday and I’d walk across to the newsstand at the drugstore, and there were my photos, complete with captions with no editing. So I quickly saw a huge amount of my work published as featured articles. And sclc was ecstatic.

WhatimpressionwereyougettingoftheSouthinallthesetravelsandactivities?

Well, for me, it was like—eyes wide, Bob, you know. The South was a brand-new ex - perience for me. I’d never been there, wasn’t acquainted with the culture, either the white or the black culture. And at that time the reason I was sending press releases and photos to major black newspapers was that Afro-American culture was totally isolated and separate from Anglo culture. And black people had their own entertain - ment, their own newspapers, their own banks, their own pharmacies in most urban communities. So it was like going to another planet, and that’s a planet where I had never lived. So everything I did was new [laughs], really new, and the people I was meeting were really new for my life. I remember they once sent me out—I’ve got a photo - graph of this—to meet an old, old man who’d been born in slavery, take his picture, and make a feature article. He had never been out of the thirty-mile radius of his home. I had never met anyone like that. I remember writing an article and sending out the photos with it. I still have the photo, but not the notes. I deeply regret that I wasn’t more meticulous about that. I also remember a silly experience that’ll give you an idea of some of my middle- class upscale breeding. I went to a minister’s house to talk to him and his wife. They were gonna put me up for a half day until I did other photos. I went in the bathroom

Left: Mr.andMrs.RozHeinz,thebrother-in-lawandsisterofDavidColstonSr.,whowasshotdead afterhiscarwasrammedbyawhitedriverandhegotouttoinspectthedamage.Photographing Colston’sfamilyfortheAfricanAmericanpresswasamongFitch’sfirstassignmentsforthe SouthernChristianLeadershipConference.Camden,Alabama,1966.

76 77 and I gave a shit, and I looked around. I needed to wipe my ass and there was no toilet I have a final story and for me this is critical. I have a set of heroes that has endured a paper. I wondered, “How am I gonna wipe my ass?” So I tapped on the door, and lifetime from this experience. I was in Eutaw, Alabama and this was the beginning of said, “Mrs., do you have any toilet paper?” She said, “Wait just a minute.” I waited the voter rights campaigns, and our attorneys and naacp and aclu were beginning ten minutes—suddenly a roll of toilet paper was handed to me. On the floor was a to purge the voting rolls of the dead Anglo people [chuckles]. Everything was very box of bundled-up newspapers. That’s what they used for toilet paper. They literally tense, but this was a target town for sclc . I was in town photographing candidates, went to the store and bought me a roll of toilet paper, this incredible luxury. I didn’t and I passed a school. Someone had told me it was an all-white school, one of the have the brains quite to put that together until a little later. So it was a new world for segregated schools. I’d visited a black school, but I just stopped the car to photo - me. And they were good people, really , really good people. graph this school. I stepped on the grass, and suddenly a cop came up, grabbed my And I remember driving, and being extremely scared. I remember sometimes ass, threw me in the cop car, took me to jail for four days. They wouldn’t let me make we’d drive from Selma back to Atlanta, and Leroy Moton was the young man who a call. But people knew where I was and somehow the word got out, and after four was in the car with 2 when she was killed. And it was incredibly scary for days of eating beans, a lot of cornbread and beans, they brought me downstairs and him to drive that road still. He was in a state of fear, and he’d often get himself drunk they said I’d been bailed out. to be able to take that drive back to Atlanta. You know, one day I detected he was just I said, “Oh, wonderful. Let’s see the papers.” They put them before me. I had to so fucking drunk, and I asked one of the guys, “Why does he do that to himself?” sign them. And my thoughts were, well, who bailed me out? And Dr. King’s name He explained the story as I’ve just shared with you. And sometimes I would actually was not on the bail-out papers. Andrew Young’s name was not on the papers, and weep when I’d be in a church. You know, we were so unsafe and under threat on the Hosea Williams’ name was not on the papers. The names that were on the papers street that to be in a church and the safety of that circumstance would overwhelm were three local farmers, who had put up their lifetime heritage—their land—to bail me as the music would start up, and I’d just break into tears. my white ass out of jail. It was a very stark reminder of something I knew was going The first time I drove back from the South to visit the West, I got into California on but became very sharp as the movement went on, that the black civil rights move - and I was driving down the highway and a highway patrol car drove up behind me. ment was not the result of Dr. King, or Stokely Carmichael, or core , or any civil He pulled up and he passed me, and I broke into weeping and had to pull over and rights organization. The black civil rights movement was a consequence of hundreds stop the car, because the everyday fear for all of us was just so fucking intense it was and thousands of landed and employed Afro-American families nickel and diming not conscious. It had to be denied. And I’m proud to say this in behalf of the black to their own local organizations for the century after Reconstruction. These farmers civil rights movement that many people in the North still don’t understand. They were part of that, and that’s what bailed my white ass out of jail. Even telling you say, “Oh, it was a failure, it didn’t raise the salaries of . . .” Well, it failed on many today it tingles. And that’s been my role model for the rest of my life. The rest of my levels, particularly economically. But a person who has never been there will never life is: Bob, you’re in a community. Be attentive to that community. Be attentive to understand what it’s like for a family, for the first time in a hundred years, to walk at the social justice issues in that community. And support the empowerment of the night with safety down a main street of their own town, be that Eutaw, Alabama, or disenfranchised, wherever you’re living. So pretty much after I left sclc I did various Atlanta, Georgia—’cause to do that prior to the black civil rights movement meant kinds of organizing for the balance of my life and photographed those activities as death or a beating or severe harassment. I went through. And I perceived myself as an organizer who uses a camera to tell the story of my work, which is true today.

2 Viola Liuzzo, a thirty-nine-year-old mother of five, was killed by the on March 25, 1965. A white activist from Michigan, she participated in the Selma to Montgomery march and was driving marchers back to Montgomery when a car with three passengers pulled alongside of her and one of the men shot her in the head. At the time of the shooting, Leroy Moton, a nineteen-year-old black activist, was sitting in the front passenger seat of the car Liuzzo was driving.

78 79