Civil rights movement chronicled in ephemera
Flyers, buttons, newspapers and posters from the era of the civil rights movement constitute the latest exhibit at the Amistad Research Center on the Tulane uptown campus. Referencing a poem by Gil Scott-Heron, the exhibit is titled “The Revolution Will Not Be...": Print Culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
This flyer was produced by the Council of Federated Organizations after the 1964 murders of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner near Philadelphia, Miss. (Image from the Amistad Research Center)
While the content of the exhibit is sure to appeal to history buffs, particularly those interested in civil rights, there is much offered to those interested in printing and publishing technology.
“At this time there were changes in the publishing world,” says Christopher Harter, director of library and reference services at the Amistad Research Center. “Printing technology became cheaper and filtered down from the print industry into the hands of community organizations and individuals.”
The democratization of this technology was instrumental to college students and others organizing protests, he says.
“These documents give a very personal view of what was going on because you can see the attention that went into preparing these things,” says Harter. “These items were meant to be ephemeral, but the items that were saved truly chronicle the civil rights movement.”
The oldest piece in the exhibit is an 1841 volume of The Emancipator, an anti-slavery newspaper founded by abolitionists associated with the New York City Anti-Slavery Society. The most recent is a 1972 edition of the Louisiana Weekly, which notes the funeral of civil rights attorney A.P. Tureaud, Shirley Chisolm's presidential announcement and the selection of Peter Hall as the first black judge in Birmingham, Ala.
The exhibit at the center, located in Tilton Hall, ends Dec. 22.
