Florida Holocaust Museum puts on civil rights photography exhibition.
It’s important to remember our past, even the moments that seem the darkest – the ones we may want to forget.
The civil rights movement that fought for equal rights for African-Americans is chronicled in black and white photographs inside the Florida Holocaust Museum.
The exhibit, “This Light of Ours: Activist Photographers of the Civil Rights Movement,” is a collection of 157 photographs that combine the work of nine photographers who primarily worked with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. The exhibit and the rest of the museum are free to USF St. Petersburg students.
Most of the photographs document African-American life and the struggles many faced in Mississippi and Alabama during 1963-1966. Some of the photographers tried to capture the strength of people making their way through an America that deeply limited their lives.
Other powerful photographs in the exhibit show Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders walking in the Meredith March Against Fear, a march that was held in honor of James Meredith, who was shot and wounded on the second day of a planned 200-mile trek from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. The collection finishes with the heart breaking funeral of King.
The Center for Documentary Expression and Art organized the traveling exhibition. Support was also provided by the Bruce W. Bastian Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Bank of America helped to finance the exhibition.
Opening reception: The opening reception of This Light of Ours was held at the museum on Aug. 1.
Julian Bond, an American activist and leader in the civil rights movement, narrates a walk-through of the exhibit. Bond had a long career as a social justice advocate. He was president of the NAACP. Bond died in August.
On the third floor there is a new exhibit featuring artifacts and photographs of the civil rights movement in the Tampa Bay area, which displays the struggles of the African-American community in the St. Petersburg area. It is titled “Beaches, Benches, and Boycotts: The Civil Rights Movement in Tampa Bay.”
“This will be the first iteration of the exhibition,” said Elizabeth Gelman, the executive director for the Florida Holocaust Museum. “We are finding a lot of community support and are looking forward to 2017 to put on a 21st century presentation with testimonies and even more objects.”
“We were shocked to find that no one had created a civil rights exhibit in Tampa Bay, and it is really important to know our own history,” she said. “This isn’t something that happened a long time ago in some place far away. No, this happened right here.”
Both exhibitions will be on display until December. In support of the collection the FHM is holding a number of panel discussions with public speakers that look to explore the stories and history of the civil rights movement. These discussions are free and open to the public, but require an RSVP.
There are a variety of topics offered including St Petersburg testimonials and a panel discussion of the Freedom Riders, which will feature Bernard Lafayette, a civil rights activist from Tampa who participated in the Freedom Rides of 1961, and Dr. Ray Arsenault, a USFSP professor and author of a book about the Freedom Riders.
Information:
Into Uncharted Waters: Jews in the Civil Rights Movement
Wednesday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. Temple Beth Sholom, 1050 S Tuttle Ave., Sarasota
Thursday, Oct. 8 at 6:30 p.m. The Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 Fifth St. S
RSVP required (727) 820-0100 ext. 301
This is My Story: St Pete Stories
Oct. 13 at 6 p.m. Sunken Gardens, 1825 Fourth St. N
Freedom Riders
Oct. 18 at 2 p.m. The Florida Holocaust Museum
Light refreshments provided.
RSVP required (727) 820-0100 ext. 301
