The civil-rights movement wasn’t just “Rosa sat down, Martin stood up and the white folks came down to save the day,” the photographer Matt Herron quips.
“The heart of the movement was in the ordinary people who made change happen.”
It also was hard work. And a lot of it. Herron remembers the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March as “five days of walking backwards.” His photos show rain and sweat and palpable fatigue and marching feet in worn-out shoes.
He describes that march as “a visual feast”; his oversized prints on the wall of a Long Beach, Mississippi, art gallery support that memory. They are black and white, and riveting.
The face of a black boy too young to vote, Bobby Simmons, seems to dominate the room, his eyes following you like Jesus from a Sunday-school room. “VOTE” is written across Simmons’ forehead, rather swiped into the sunblock on his face like “Wash Me” on a dirty windshield.
It would be wonderful to see that particular 50-year-old photo as only a historic relic, a beautiful example of the work of one activist photographer during the civil-rights movement that changed things. An art exhibit only. Art born of struggle. Art with a soundtrack from a nearby church choir that has both black and white members.
Herron makes that case, reminding his audience that Mississippi — where he once lived and worked to promote change — now boasts the largest number of black elected officials in the nation. And he’s right, so far as it goes. There has been change, or at least a morphing of the face of racism.
Perusing the gallery walls, I can’t help but notice that some of these photographs look similar to the ones in the morning newspaper. And I’m not sure you can say it’s time to call the work done.
Black protesters — heck, any protesters — remain fair game. Even George Wallace of my childhood did not urge the beating of protesters as Donald Trump of 2016 is doing. Not publicly at least.
When Wallace railed against “outside agitators” in the march that Herron documented, the Alabama governor had the evil sense to use coded words. Trump doesn’t bother. He offers to pay the legal fees for anyone who knocks down a protester.
When black citizens are pulled from their cars for imaginary violations, or thrown to the sidewalk, and even shot by angry police, it’s not anything new, but another chapter in the struggle to show black lives matter — the same movement Herron covered. Same protest song, different verse.
It’s time for Herron’s “ordinary people” to step up again, at least to know enough history to realize when it’s repeating itself. For we are hearing a broken record of this country’s inhumanity to man.
So much has been written about the mystery of Trump’s appeal that you hesitate to add yet another theory to the heap. What’s the point, you think.
I see no real mystery. It’s racism, pure and simple, a reaction to eight years of a black president, to attacks by radical Islam, to job loss to Mexico. Racism, bitter and hateful. The worst of us, on parade.
Whatever its cause, racism is base and wrong and exploitable by media-savvy demagogues like Donald Trump. It is all too familiar, in the history books and on front pages.
Rheta Grimsley Johnson’s most recent book is “Hank Hung the Moon … And Warmed Our Cold, Cold Hearts.” Comments are welcomed at [email protected].
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.