PBS special on the Freedom Riders

[ibcrewin]

Last night on PBS there was an American Experience episode about the freedom riders ride through the deep south.

There were a lot of images caught on film that captured the moment which made me think about the importance of photography in the movement. At 34 and living in the Northeast, I don't have a memory of segregated times, so it blows me away to see these images.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/

 

[rover]

At 34 and living in the Northeast, I don't have a memory of segregated times, so it blows me away to see these images.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/

Being 46, going to school in the 1970s and 80s, with textbooks out of date since the 1950s, unfortunately I used to feel the same way. I grew up not fully understanding or appreciating why the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War for the same reason, were so important and such pervasive topics of that time.

I strongly recommend you find an opportunity to take a weekend trip to Atlanta and visit the Martin Luther King National Historic Site. I will just say that it opened my eyes and filled in the blanks for me. It is a very worthy way to spend an afternoon.

Then you can see CNN, Coca Cola and find a great place for fried chicken to fill out the weekend. It is a great weekend trip. (I guess that is the third time I said that in this short post.)

 

[rover]

I should add that the photographs from the era and how they are displayed at the National Parks Service center there are increadibly powerful.

As if there is a need to justify this thread as being OT here, photography is a tool and means to educate, explain, demonstrate, challenge.... all demonstrated on Auburn Street in Atlanta.

 

[ibcrewin]

Being 46, going to school in the 1970s and 80s, with textbooks out of date since the 1950s, unfortunately I used to feel the same way. I grew up not fully understanding or appreciating why the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War for the same reason, were so important and such pervasive topics of that time.

I strongly recommend you find an opportunity to take a weekend trip to Atlanta and visit the Martin Luther King National Historic Site. I will just say that it opened my eyes and filled in the blanks for me. It is a very worthy way to spend an afternoon.

Then you can see CNN, Coca Cola and find a great place for fried chicken to fill out the weekend. It is a great weekend trip. (I guess that is the third time I said that in this short post.)

The wife and I were talking about this. I definitely want to go one day. I would like to take the kids when they are old enough. I grew up in a really diverse town, diverse school went to a diverse college, and work in a diverse company. Just hearing the Governers of Alabama and Mississippi talking the way they did was bizzare.

Part of the reason I put this topic here was that all I saw were rangefinders. A TLR made an appearance at some point too.

 

[Teuthida]

I strongly recommend you find an opportunity to take a weekend trip to Atlanta and visit the Martin Luther King National Historic Site. I will just say that it opened my eyes and filled in the blanks for me. It is a very worthy way to spend an afternoon.

Agreed. A very moving place. Or Read Taylor Branch's three volume Biography of MLK and the civil rights movement.

 

[Bob Michaels]

I suggest rather than going to a museum that one actually visit a historic Negro community and talk with the people who lived in this era. It is like the difference between watching the Travel Channel on TV and actually going someplace.

Sidenote: MLK Jr is the only American with his own statue and park in Cuba. It is on 23rd in the Vedado section of Havana.

 

[Timmyjoe]

I totally agree with Bob. There is still time to meet and talk to the folks that lived the experience of the Civil Rights struggle.

About five years ago, while working on a screenplay about the Mississippi Summer Project (1964) I was able to track down and talk to about a dozen individuals (heroes all) who actually participated in the struggle. Their stories are spellbinding.

Best,
-Tim

 

[whitecat]

Good series. I get it on the iPad with the PBS app.