[BUMPED = I just received this email from Eric Etheridge, the photographer who put together this project I wrote about back in January. I'm so excited for him even though I've never met him in person]
Hi, you blogged about my Mississippi Freedom Rider project in January. My project is now a book: Breach of Peace: Portraits of the Mississippi Freedom Rider is shipping from Amazon and should be in stores soon. I also have a web site for the book, where I am primarily publishing material I didn't have room for in the book: http://breachofpeace.com. Finally, I'll be doing a reading in Minneapolis on June 11, located TBD. Let me know if you want any more information. Best, Eric Etheridge
It's projects like these that make me love the internet. I don't think I would have found out about this otherwise. Back in 2005, photographer Eric Etheridge discovered mugshots of Freedom Riders who had been arrested in Jackson, Miss., and decided to track them down and take their photographs. The results of this project, Breach of Peace, not only put a real, human face on the Civil Rights Movement but also show just how young and (even though I kind of hate this word because it's been hijacked by so many spin doctors and bullshit artists) diverse the people behind this movement were.
The above photos, of 28-year-old Freedom Rider Helen Singleton, are my favorites, I think. How can you not love the defiant smirk she wears in her mugshot and hints of that defiance still present in her face nearly 50 years later? Hopefully Etheridge can find more of the riders and get this collection of portraits and stories published as a book sometime soon, or maybe turned into a traveling exhibition. It really illustrates the power art, particularly photography, has to make the past as immediate as ever.
More photos can also be seen here.
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6 comments:
This is fantastic! I was just watching the Montgomery Bus Boycott on BET last night. I love your website. I'm going to make a link so that I can come visit.
wow. this is beautiful!!! and that smirk is even more beautiful. i LOVE it.
stephen, welcome. if you'd like to join our blog we'd love to have you.
i love how they all are looking directly ahead...and seem so sure that what they are doing is an absolute neccessity
What's wrong with those pictures? It's something that I've felt for a long time, but was not able to express until now. You could say that I'm being the devil's advocate right now, but it doesn't change the way I feel. First of all I want to say that I am very proud of these individuals who would have been faceless and nameless if it were not for these police mugshots. The problem I have is that these mugshots are not of people who have benefitted the most from the actions of these great heroes. I see Black men, Black women, and White men represented here. And I give honorable mention to White women as I can think of at least one White woman who lost her very life while her children were orphaned for the cause, and may have even been arrested many times before she was murdered for giving a ride to a freedom fighter. The problem I have is that the people who have benefitted the most from the works of these heroic freedom fighters are not Black Women, Black men, or women in general, but they are Asian, Hispanic, or none of the above. When I see photos or videos of MLK marching at any given time I don't see any Hispanics, Asians, and no any other who have truly benefitted from the works of these Heroes. And the only reason I do not care about affirmative action is because it was not working for the purpace it was intended for in the first place. The people who are enjoying the fruits of it are many times just as racist as all other racists, and are doing so by calling themselves minorities by the definitions of affirmative action. Racism has mutated and it is getting a free ride on the backs of these heroic freedom riders with no shame at all. I gotta cut this short, because Smokey Robinson's lifetime acheivement award on BET is on right now.
I had to think about terrykeith's comment from January for a LONG time. I didn't want to be reactionary and I didn't want to assume I knew what he meant when he didn't. But my problem with the above statement is that White women, Asians and Hispanics were on the front line of the Civil Rights movement as well. Maybe Asians and Hispanics didn't make up the vast majority of freedom riders but they were fighting for their right to be counted as citizens just as hard as Black people were and are.
And if you go to breachofpeace.com you'll see mugshots of white women who were arrested for being freedom riders. There wasn't as much Balkanization of civil rights workers as there is now.
I get what terry's saying, especially in regards to affirmative action, but the issue is a lot more complex than that. I'm just glad this project is sparking a true dialogue, because this is a conversation that can be sustained for more time than some 30-second sound bite on CNN or Fox News.
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