In 1961 the photographer Bruce Davidson boarded a bus with a group of anti-segregationist Freedom Riders traveling from Montgomery, Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi. Two years later he was in Washington for the Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech. In 1965 he joined the historic five-day march from Selma to Montgomery. Photographs from those and other excursions to the South as well as from Davidson’s hometown New York were gathered together in the book ‘Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs 1961-1965’, published in 2002.
While Davidson’s series shows us protests and violence, it also documents the social and economic circumstances in New York City, Chicago, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. From his images of protestors being dragged through the streets to quiet moments at carnivals, jukebox joints, and ice-cream stores, these pictures stand as one of the most comprehensive and pervasive documents from this period in American history.
The photographs avoid partisan sensationalism. A lyrical, ruminative mood prevails. Looking at Davidson’s deeply humane photographs is like seeing the world through the eyes of a wandering poet, like Walt Whitman with a camera.
Fist limited edition of 100 copies, with signed and numbered print.
A wonderful book presented in absolutely perfect packaging.
