Images of Civil Rights
Civil Rights Activists have always utilized available technologies to the maximum in order to express the sense of urgency and gain Public sympathy. Media such as Photography, Newspapers, and TV all were very much a crucial part of the early demonstrations and often were utilized to counter the misinformation of its oppressor. The delivery and importance of media in civil rights have not changed so much as the speed and accessibility since the internet and Social Media was introduced.
Gordon also known as Whipped Peter was a slave form Louisiana that escaped for hopes of freedom by enlisting in the Northern Army during the Civil War in 1863. When asked to remove his shirt during a physical the Republican Leader of the Northern Army was horrified by the painful scars that resulted in one of the most powerful images of Civil Rights. Gordon sat with his heavily scarred back toward the camera, a new technology of that time, looking slightly over his shoulder as if to send a message to its viewers that he too was a person. This image was printed and shared across the country by northern revolutionaries to expose the south for its treatment of slaves. Eventually, the image would land in Harpers Bizarre and distributed around the globe giving more steam to the Northern movement.
Decades later, as another technology, called the television, flourished in the 1950s another picture pressed the concern of the wrongful treatment of African American’s. Many laws that had been created after the Civil War, Jim Crow Laws, still promoted segregation and unjust treatment of African men and women specifically in the south. As marches led by Martin Luther King Jr became televised so did the harmful reflection of police brutality and the smear campaigns against the movement. Televised Media showed not only the hopeful words and peaceful marches of the Leader but in the same aspect also promoted an overall fear of the black male. One channel would report Martin Luther King Jr as a wanted criminal by the FBI as the other openly broadcast the famous “I have a dream” speech providing hope for equality.
Present-day, 50 years after we mourned the assentation of Martin Luther King Jr, in the age of the internet and social media, we have watched repeated police brutality against protesters and viral beatings of men like George Floyd all within the small palms of our hands. The marches that were started so long ago continue in record-breaking numbers as the demand for equality still continues decades after Gordon escaped for freedom.
Social Media just like TV and print is just another delivery method for information, its quick, easily accessible, and yet in personable. Sharing an image, no matter how fast the delivery is, may not be enough to battle centuries of racial injustice and heal a nation. I wonder, with social medias quick delivery if actually desensitizes a people to the root of the issue or perhaps that the targeted algorithms keep useful information from those that truly need to see the light of current civil rights issues. As Dr. LeRoy Haynes, an activist that has worked with Martin Luther King Jr stated in regard to social media recently. “You are still going to have to do relational building if you are to have continuity of justice and the creation of a beloved community”.
Gordon also known as Whipped Petter in 1868
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