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Terrorism. Unspeakable acts. Unthinkable events.
These words explain recent events in New York and Washington,
D.C. but less than 40 years ago, these same words could have been
used to describe a tumultuous period in American history marked
by murders, bombings, and riots.
"The Sixties" was a time of immense political and social
upheaval in this country - the struggle for Civil Rights,
the Days of Rage, the anti-Vietnam War movement, the Women's
Liberation movement and Gay Rights movement, and the emergence
of a counterculture were periodically punctuated by assassinations:
John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Artist Robert Templeton witnessed the race riots in Detroit,
the illustration of which appeared on the August 4, 1967 cover
of Time magazine. Deeply disturbed by this event, Templeton resolved
to create a pictorial civil rights history to commemorate its
leaders for future generations. Lest We Forget: Images of the
Black Civil Rights Movement is comprised of 34 portraits completed
over the course of twenty years by this nationally known portraitist
and includes key figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
W.E.B. DuBois, Ralph Abernathy, Roy Wilkins, and Rosa Parks.
But while Templeton focused his energy creating these timeless
portraits, photographers such as Gordon Parks, Charles Moore and
James Karales captured candid shots from the front lines of the
movement. Searing images of police dogs attacking demonstrators,
firemen hosing down protesters, King being arrested, and the march
from Selma to Montgomery, distributed in newspapers around the
country as well as in photo-essays in Look and Life magazines,
served to speed the cause of civil rights.
Reverend George Lee, Lamar Smith, Emmett Till, Willie Edwards,
Jr., Louis Allen, Cpl. Ducksworth, Jr., and Viola Gregg Liuzzo
are the ordinary heroes - black and white - memorialized in the
film A Time For Justice. Produced by three-time Academy Award-winner
Charles Guggenheim, this film is a moving account of the crises
in Montgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham and Selma and is an homage
to those who gave their lives for the cause of freedom and equality.
Although the civil rights movement ended legal apartheid in this
country and wrought significant changes in American life for African-Americans,
women and other marginalized groups, it is nevertheless true that
inequalities and racism remain, and so the struggle continues.
I would like to thank the following people for their contributions
to this exhibit: Leonore and Kevin Templeton for the loan of Robert
Templeton's work; Parker Stephenson, Howard Greenberg Gallery,
New York for assisting with the selection and loan of photographs,
and Instructor Tony Ball for his comprehensive catalog essay.
In addition, special thanks to Shelley Solomon, Assistant Principal
at Hall High School in West Hartford and Professor Peter Ulisse
for their contributions to educational programming; and to the
Southern Poverty Law Center, the Parrish Art Museum, Southhampton,
NY; and Bobs M. Tusa, Librarian, University of Southern Mississippi
for assistance with research; Dr. James Mooney for educational
panels, Helen Barnett for public relations and Blaine Kruger for
design.
Robbin Zella, Director, Housatonic Museum of Art
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